Over the past couple of years, we’ve been hearing a great deal of chatter from local and national government representatives alike, with regard to how and to what extent UK motorists should be made to play a role in bringing air pollution under control. As far as policy makers are concerned, the problem is one that concerns everyone and therefore everyone should contribute. Critics, by contrast, state that it is the vehicle manufacturers and policymakers themselves that should foot the bill, given the way in which it is technically their fault we’ve ended up with such an air pollution crisis in the first place.
One of the more controversial proposals is that of immediately and permanently reducing motorway speed limits to 60mph. It has been suggested that computer simulations have comprehensively illustrated the benefits of doing so, whether applied to all motorways across the board or simply used to target the most problematic areas. In any case, critics have (unsurprisingly) hit back at the government, suggesting that the speed limit reduction would be unfair to those who own newer and more economical cars.
They believe that any legislation imposed should focus primarily on vehicles that pump out the most pollution, while those with cleaner cars should be exempt. Needless to say, implementing and policing such a system – at least as far as speed limits are concerned – would be fundamentally impossible.
As it stands, there are currently five proposals under consideration in the UK, as a means by which to help clean up the country’s air. These are:
- Incentivise motorists to make the switch to electric vehicles, while at the same time installing new charging points across the country.
- Work to replace around 15,000 of the most polluting vehicles in the United Kingdom with electric alternatives.
- Focus on traffic management to help eliminate or relax the kinds of ‘pinch points’ that create congestion and heavy pockets of pollution around the country.
- Reduce motorway speed limits from the current 70 miles per hour to 60 miles per hour.
- Create 27 zones around United Kingdom, where those driving dirty or vehicles will face charges or penalisation for entering, while those car-sharing and using public transport will be further incentivised.
Of course, on top of all of this bears the on-going discussion as to the appropriateness of encouraging – or perhaps even forcing – diesel car drivers to scrap in their vehicles and upgrade to cleaner models. While it’s been proven that diesel vehicles are contributing to the UK’s pollution crisis more excessively than other vehicles, the fact that the UK government both endorsed and incentivised the purchase of diesel vehicles just a few years ago has resulted in widespread anger among diesel car drivers.
Even with the prospect of being offered say £1,000 or £2,000 to upgrade, such measures would still result in the overwhelming majority of those taking part in the scheme facing considerable expense.
The only thing we know for sure right now is that there is clearly no silver bullet solution to the problem, nor can we expect anything radical to be implemented overnight.
