And they continue to deny any responsibility

[Oli]

HGVs consume huge amounts of fuel compared with a car - and accumulate a lot more miles.

You can't win that bet except on a technicality unless your brother drives 24/7 with a maximum load in the car while towing a maximum load.

I think most cars would struggle to get close to pulling 44 tonnes.
My point wasn't to do with their fuel economy, more with the cleanliness of the engine, HGVs-well modern ones anyway are very clean in terms of NoX but in terms of how much fuel they use- of course they're bad, most struggle to get much more than 7 MPG.
In the same vein an HGV is usually on the road to provide a pretty important service, not a lot would get done without them- I think it's a shame that both the previous and current mayor of London seem to vilify them so much while never mentioning the lack of training and stupidity of SOME cyclists but that's another debate.

 

[geraldrobins]

No you are not alone in illogical decisions, the car I drive currently (or I should say my wife uses for the 300 miles per week school run) is not logical either

The difference to me is that those other illogical choices don't impact anyone else, to me that is a pretty big differentiator.

Surely all our choices impact on others. All vehicles cause pollution to some extent.

 

[dejongj]

Surely all our choices impact on others. All vehicles cause pollution to some extent.

The OP is regarding mass emissions not greenhouse gases. The immediate impact of those particles as part of mass emissions is on a totally different scale regarding impact on others. A point I was making earlier, people seem to bing forward arguments that petrol cars are bad as well, and yes I agree they also cause pollution but of a totally different kind and with very different impacts on health of humans. Hence the measuring stations are there with regards to the impact of nox and the targets have been set and agreed to reduce those.

I'm not disagreeing, but it is a different argument.

 

[CabrioDave]

When asked, I'm "in favour of reducing pollution". But am I really being a good boy?

I'll admit:

** two of my cars are tiny-engined two-strokes, which, while regarded as frugal economy cars in their day, do less to the gallon than my 1.6-tonne five-seater modern estate car. And probably have horrible emissions.

** one is a 2.7-litre diesel-engined motorhome, weighing up to 3.9 tonnes, and tends to go about with a trailer, too.

** one is a modern(-ish) smart car

** one is the E220 Cabriolet (petrol)

All were bought because I like them, and like driving and using them.

The only one where I really had a choice between petrol and diesel was the (now 3-yr-old) estate car: Skoda Superb "Greenline" (1.6 diesel) in Elegance trim. I bought that because it was "low pollution", but not from a sense of greenness. From a sense of scroogeness! The professed mpg and the £30 tax were linked to the way the car sips fuel, and THAT is what attracted me. Money.

Also, with the increased publication this last couple of years of the likely actual cost of maintaining a diesel, as it gets older, I realise that I bought the wrong thing. That car does less than 5,000 miles a year, so will actually cost me more, once it needs new EGR, has chogged up its DPF, and so on. (Though it really does do over 70 mpg on a longer journey!)

I feel that the "fairness" of the new VED system coming in from 1 April has lost an important lever towards getting people to buy only the lesser polluting vehicles.

 

[Deleted member 65149]

Sorry, just noticed I made a mistake with the link in an earlier post. Here it s corrected.

HGVs consume huge amounts of fuel compared with a car - and accumulate a lot more miles. You can't win that bet except on a technicality unless your brother drives 24/7 with a maximum load in the car while towing a maximum load.

"Cars accounted for 79% of all vehicle miles travelled in 2014". https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...ment_data/file/514912/road-use-statistics.pdf Lots of interesting data in there.

 

[geraldrobins]

Brixton Road breaches annual air pollution limit in five days - BBC News

"Here he goes again". Yes, it's because I'm concerned about what NOx is doing to my children's health and my grandchildren's health. That's NOx from diesel cars. It's not the pollutants from lorries and busses that are the problem, it's diesel cars. I can understand why diesel car owners don't want to and/or can't afford to immediately change to cars that don't pump out the high levels of NOx. I can even understand why they become defensive about their choice. But I don't understand why they can't admit that they are part of the problem and consider a change of fuel with their next car purchase. Instead, I've had many in this very forum hurling abuse at me for airing my views, my fears. Of course they'll continue to ignore the ever-mounting evidence. Of course they'll continue to abuse me for posting this. Perhaps burying their heads in the sand is protecting them from NOx, but is it protecting their families? It's certainly not protecting my family.

How do you suggest we proceed then? Clearly we cant all scrap our cars overnight or even over a year. A lot of people accept there is an issue with emissions and will consider alternatively fuelled cars for their next car so please don't generalise and imply all don't.
I expect if you ask the typical salesman in a showroom he will tell the prospective purchaser how efficient and clean the latest diesel model is, so it is difficult for purchasers.
The new vehicle tax regulations from April give less advantage to diesel owners so this may help, but I think company car tax is till based on emissions.

 

[abecketts]

Yes, but how do apple trees planted in Surrey help you when you breath the fumes of a black cab in Oxford Street...?

If i'm trying to measure my co2/n02 contribution I have the positive contribution of our farm set against whatever else I do. I try to avoid using a taxi when I have to go to London or other city. Can't solve everything but it at least helps in a positive way.

 

[Deleted member 65149]

How do you suggest we proceed then? Clearly we cant all scrap our cars overnight or even over a year. A lot of people accept there is an issue with emissions and will consider alternatively fuelled cars for their next car so please don't generalise and imply all don't.

I've never said that all people don't accept that there's an issue with emissions and won't consider alternatives. Fortunately very many people do. So I don't generalise, what I do is question the logic of some of the others who appear to refuse to accept this and instead just get angry that anyone should dare to ask why.

I expect if you ask the typical salesman in a showroom he will tell the prospective purchaser how efficient and clean the latest diesel model is, so it is difficult for purchasers. The new vehicle tax regulations from April give less advantage to diesel owners so this may help, but I think company car tax is till based on emissions.

I completely agree. My question is, should we ignore all the warnings and just let this continue?

 

[geraldrobins]

I've never said that all people don't accept that there's an issue with emissions and won't consider alternatives. Fortunately very many people do. So I don't generalise, what I do is question the logic of some of the others who appear to refuse to accept this and instead just get angry that anyone should dare to ask why.


I completely agree. My question is, should we ignore all the warnings and just let this continue?

I don't think the warnings are being ignored by everyone. It took quite a while for diesel cars to be 'fashionable' over petrol so it may take the same time for the reverse to occur.
Also diesels cars may be developed to be much cleaner in a few years.

I have to wonder about the targets being realistic though if the area referred to in your post has exceeded its levels by 180.

 

[Oli]

I don't think the warnings are being ignored by everyone. It took quite a while for diesel cars to be 'fashionable' over petrol so it may take the same time for the reverse to occur.
Also diesels cars may be developed to be much cleaner in a few years.

I have to wonder about the targets being realistic though if the area referred to in your post has exceeded its levels by 180.

The trouble is, modern diesels have a lot of things that can go wrong as it is, the stuff needed to make them cleaner will only add to their complexity, so from a reliability point of view petrol will be the better choice, whereas the reverse used to be true, old indirect injection diesels like the Peugeot XUD and Merccedes 300/250 D/TD were bulletproof and simple engines.

 

[renault12ts]

Hypocrite OP.

How clean is your large petrol engined car? You are being smug just because your car is relatively clean when compared to a diesel...but hugely polluting compared to a Prius.

And yet, as you say...you continue to deny this.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

No you are not alone in illogical decisions, the car I drive currently (or I should say my wife uses for the 300 miles per week school run) is not logical either

The difference to me is that those other illogical choices don't impact anyone else, to me that is a pretty big differentiator.

Although others may argue that driving relatively heavy, big engined petrol cars do impact others, due to emissions, dwindling natural resources, etc.

 

[markjay]

The trouble is, modern diesels have a lot of things that can go wrong as it is, the stuff needed to make them cleaner will only add to their complexity, so from a reliability point of view petrol will be the better choice, whereas the reverse used to be true, old indirect injection diesels like the Peugeot XUD and Merccedes 300/250 D/TD were bulletproof and simple engines.

Diesel engines' ovwrall reliability started going downhill after Turbos became commonplace.

And common rail fuel injection was another major contributor.

The engines on 1980' Diesel Peugeot cars were practically indestructible. As were the 220D and 240D etc.... some taxis would rack up 300k miles easily before any major issues occurred.

 

[geraldrobins]

The trouble is, modern diesels have a lot of things that can go wrong as it is, the stuff needed to make them cleaner will only add to their complexity, so from a reliability point of view petrol will be the better choice, whereas the reverse used to be true, old indirect injection diesels like the Peugeot XUD and Merccedes 300/250 D/TD were bulletproof and simple engines.

True but to a large extent so are the smaller high output petrol engines.
But things are pretty reliable. For instance when catalytic convertors were introduced or electronic ignition, these were all doomed to failure but over time they are pretty reliable.

 

[Deleted member 65149]

I don't think the warnings are being ignored by everyone. It took quite a while for diesel cars to be 'fashionable' over petrol so it may take the same time for the reverse to occur. Also diesels cars may be developed to be much cleaner in a few years. I have to wonder about the targets being realistic though if the area referred to in your post has exceeded its levels by 180.

Of course I hope that diesel cars become developed to be much cleaner in the future. Perhaps the "fashion" will change in time, maybe the competition between petrol and diesel is good for us all.

You could have a point about possible unrealistic targets. Many years ago I was working on research into telecommunications cable design, involving working closely with major cable manufacturers. Various target characteristics had been set by the telecoms standards people, but one was proving to be particularly hard to meet. After a year of struggling with design and material changes without success, I went back to the standards people and asked why the particular figure was needed. They said it was just a guess, plucked out of the air! What we and the manufacturers had already achieved was perfectly acceptable, we were trying to achieve unnecessarily high standards. But in trying to reach those levels we'd produced cable that proved to be essential in meeting future higher speeds and capacities, so not entirely wasted effort. Perhaps the same could be said for emission standards that are proving to be difficult to achieve.

 

[Giantvanman]

The OP has made many anti-diesel remarks for at least as long as I've been a member.

The OP has always made a big thing about his very special, ultra-limited, very rare, 3500cc petrol engined car, ownership of which somehow makes him better than everyone else.

The OP would use ANY argument just to make the previous two points over and over again and will continue to do so until everyone acknowledges his superior choices.

There was a better way to approach this subject and certainly a better way to explain the issues without trying to lord it over others.

Your argument is too narrow and ignores other contributory factors and all the time you focus on what suits your agenda and ignore everything else, you'll always meet resistance.
e.g. "Cars accounted for 79% of all vehicle miles travelled in 2014"
BUT a lorry only does about 3mpg on average and a 'normal' bus less than 10mpg (for a modern one) and about 12mpg for an "eco" model and I can't be bothered looking into the small commercial vehicle (vans, pick ups etc) numbers.

 

[Deleted member 65149]

Hypocrite OP. How clean is your large petrol engined car? You are being smug just because your car is relatively clean when compared to a diesel...but hugely polluting compared to a Prius. And yet, as you say...you continue to deny this.

You'll have to try a lot harder than that to wind me up!

I have to admit that I'm getting old, so my memory isn't all that it should be. But I can't recall any time that I have denied that the engine on my car produces pollutants. Of course it does. I don't deny it. It's just that I make a point of limiting the use of my polluting car in order to reduce its harmful effects as much as possible. That very limited use makes me believe that I'm responsible for less pollutants than I would be by changing to a Prius that has to go through a polluting manufacturing process, especially for the batteries, and then continues to contribute to pollution generated by the electricity production. When it's time for me to change my car, then I'll look into what the best option is - just as many diesel owners have said they will do. I believe that to be the sensible approach, but each to their own.

 

[alzieboy]

When the OP returns from his Maldives holiday I'm sure he will have a new drum to bang regarding all the rubbish dumped into the Indian Ocean, he can sit on the beach enjoying all that fresh air while watching the Dhoni sail out laden with rubbish to dump .

 

[Deleted member 65149]

The OP has made many anti-diesel remarks for at least as long as I've been a member. The OP has always made a big thing about his very special, ultra-limited, very rare, 3500cc petrol engined car, ownership of which somehow makes him better than everyone else.

Again I seem to be losing my memory, because I don't recall "always" making those claims. Indeed I've never used an intensifier such as "very" to describe any feature of my car. Other people have, a lot. I don't know why, I'm not even going to suggest that perhaps it's jealousy Once, and only once, in a post about numbers of cars produced I mentioned that there were only about 50 W204s in the UK with the same engine as mine. (That's twice I've mentioned it now - eek!) I didn't make a big deal of it, I certainly didn't make it out to be special; after all, that engine appears in many other models. However, I'm sure that you and some of your friends here will continue to voice those totally erroneous claims in a frustrated attempt to put me down. If it wasn't so sad it would be laughable.

 

[Deleted member 65149]

When the OP returns from his Maldives holiday I'm sure he will have a new drum to bang regarding all the rubbish dumped into the Indian Ocean, he can sit on the beach enjoying all that fresh air while watching the Dhoni sail out laden with rubbish to dump .

Come on, surely you can do better than that.