NOx is dangerous – Fact!

People don’t always realise the huge impact that some cars are having on the environment and our health. Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) is produced in the emissions of diesel vehicles, and it’s very damaging to human health and the environment. NOx can get trapped in built-up areas and contributes to a number of health problems.

NOx is the pollutant at the heart of the VW emissions scandal. It’s NOx that VW’s so-called “defeat device” is essentially allowing to be polluted way more than the official testing figures suggested.

As a dangerous pollutant, it needs to be heavily regulated, but thanks to VW, 11 million vehicles worldwide have been polluting more NOx than they were supposed to…

The health impact

NOx is known to have a massive impact on human health; NOx can irritate the lungs, often getting trapped in inner-city areas where it can linger and do serious damages to human health. After attending a conference in Brussels in September 2016, representatives of the Car Emissions Lawyers were appalled when an expert suggested that in the two hours that had passed in the morning of the conference, 16 people had already died from Nitrogen Oxide-related problems.

Needless to say, the room fell silent.

A report carried out by the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child health found that “every year in the U.K., outdoor pollution is linked to around 40,000 deaths”. This in turn could be costing the NHS nearly £20 billion a year, which is a staggering 16% of the NHS annual budget.

This is why many believe that now is the time to get rid of diesel vehicles, and the VW emissions scandal has only served to increase calls for cutting out diesel vehicles altogether.

Diesel – no longer the future?

If you purchased a car 15 years ago, you may have been told that diesel is the future. Sales of diesel cars have reportedly grown over the past 15 years since the Labour government at the time backed them as “environmentally friendly“. It wasn’t long ago since Gordon Brown’s government offered tax incentives to persuade drivers to buy diesel cars too, believing that a move away from petrol was the key to cutting CO2 emissions.

To dissuade us from driving diesel cars, the government have a number of options:

NOx levels dangerous to human health

“The car manufacturers have been seriously misleading us by using the test system to get past the European standards,” said Sir David King, who was chief scientific adviser to Mr Brown. “Frankly, NOx levels in our cities are dangerous to human health and this has to be put at the door of car manufacturers. This is a global problem and it has taken a long while for us to realise what the manufacturers were doing.”

Of the estimated 40,000 premature deaths caused by NOx, 9,000 of these happen in London alone, according to the research. This has led to the introduction of what is set to be the world’s first Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) by 2019 in London. The introduction of this would mean that unless your vehicle meets the emissions standards, you could be paying a daily charge of £21.50 whilst travelling in some central areas of London.

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