Protesters stage "Die-in" over lack of action on air pollution

Quote:

"What we say is that we want drivers to stay indoors when the pollution levels are high. We want a ban [on cars] when safety levels are broken.”

It is amazing that someone actually has to point out the complete inversion of responsibility in the context of pollution.

Nice move, it is a big big problem for which no serious action is being taken.

To be ownest, I am more afraid of air pollution, rather than an accident when I am on my bicycle...

"Some passing taxi drivers sounded their horns in support of the protest."

 Very good.

Full marks to Sian Berry for trying to make a political point scoring out of what is a major issue and exposing her ignorance. Yes, the pollution levels are too high, yes the governments need to do something by this I mean the UK, as well as the local authorities. I mean the £15Bn she is complaining about being spent on roads, even if all of that money was spent on cycling it wouldn't do anything to help pollution in London or other cities as that is for the motorway network, whereas the roads in cities are funded by the local authorities, TfL in London and other city/county councils across the country.

What she should be complaining about is why local government expenditure is even higher on roads and not doing enough to support cycling or mitigating the majority of journeys under 5 miles.

Certainly the government should be held to account for failing its citizenry this way and for failing to mandate that the regional authorities do something about pollution, every government has tried to build roads to sort of congestion, it is only now in limited ways people are trying to turn the tide, like in Bristol or London. We need more councils to do the perceived unpopular thing and discriminate the private vehicle motorist to enable public transport, walking and cycling routes to be safer and more popular and ultimately reduce car usage (faster than it already is).

I think one of the reasons that this is unpopular is as car ownership increases everyone who drives contributes to the air pollution (even the electric and hybrids as the national grid is not zero emissions). Maybe coroners need to start to include this as a contributory factor e.g. Mr X died of lung cancer owing to long exposure to harmful pollutants in the atmosphere.

[Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2013 (which is the latest one published unfortunately) Table 5.2 Public sector expenditure on services by sub-function, 2008-09 to 2012-13 shows expenditure on national roads is similiar to spend on local public transport both of which are poor rlations to the expenditure on local roads]

Nice one guys, wish the media would get on board and give this the coverage and investigation it deserves. Reams of political tit for tat on the main news sites, but anything important only gets occassional mention.

Pollution is generally a result of money being generated, which is why it's one of the hardest fights to tackle.

Unfortunately, are we quite sure that taxi drivers were honking their horns in "support "?

"If the same number were getting run over by cars there would be uproar."

I genuinely doubt that.

Thank God for "hipsters" highlighting the issue. There's an astonishing refusal to even acknowledge this as a problem by the general public. I guess it's the inconvenience factor.

Well done to SKC for raising the awareness of this.

A 'die-in'. Also know as hipsters lying in the road.