Sucking in the exhaust

[Terpfan]

I don’t mind the cars as much as those bad winter days on the MVT where the plane exhaust seems to hang there. It was so bad one time that I actually stopped because I was coughing too hard to continue bicycling safety. Once a slight breeze picked up, it was fine, but I hate that smoggy crap. It’s not that the cars, well really the buses, aren’t bad, it’s just that the random airport experiences (happens a handful of times each year) is just almost unbearable.

[Steve O]

@ShawnoftheDread 128111 wrote:

But is the asthma increase the result of the exhaust or the result of parental response to living near busy roads, such as keeping windows closed and staying indoors more?

I’m sure you can Google the studies and read up on the methodology if you like.

[runbike]

@mstone 128042 wrote:

I’ll also remind the older crowd about how much worse it used to be, following a car. For all the complaining about EPA, it’s a night and day difference. I’d like to think the situation will only improve as more old cars are taken off the road and replaced by cars with pesky regulations that happen to pollute less.

^ This. Having live in the DC area for 34 odd years now I can attest that pollution is significantly lower than it used to be, most of it due to increased emissions standards for vehicles. There was a time in the 80’s and 90’s when you’d expect at least a dozen or more code red air days in the summer. In the past two years we’ve had none (info courtesy the capital weather gang – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/10/03/d-c-air-quality-just-keeps-getting-better-zero-code-red-days-in-2014/)

[TwoWheelsDC]

@ShawnoftheDread 128111 wrote:

But is the asthma increase the result of the exhaust or the result of parental response to living near busy roads, such as keeping windows closed and staying indoors more?

Perhaps… but in that case the pollution (and proximity to it) probably would still be a primary factor. In the one study I read, they didn’t go into how much outside time kids got, but it did note that air pollution readily penetrated indoors…so yeah, keeping kids indoors may make it worse.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

@TwoWheelsDC 128150 wrote:

Perhaps… but in that case the pollution (and proximity to it) probably would still be a primary factor. In the one study I read, they didn’t go into how much outside time kids got, but it did note that air pollution readily penetrated indoors…so yeah, keeping kids indoors may make it worse.

I remember seeing that study and recall that criticism of it was whether proximity to highways caused asthma or was it a matter that highway properties have lower property values, inhabited by poorer families, with poorer health protocols in general. Interesting none the less since I live on Arlington Boulevard. Our house keeps the windows closed not because of the pollution, but because of the noise.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

Meanwhile I’m curiously optimistic about studies that have linked removal of lead from gasoline to lowered crime rates and other social improvements in the U.S. and other countries too as they also removed lead from gasoline.

Mother Jones
BBC

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