How damaging to your health are exhaust fumes?

How damaging to your health are exhaust fumes?

Author
Discussion

warp9

Original Poster:

1,583 posts

196 months

Monday 24th November 2014
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For the last 4 years I have commuted a daily 10 mile round trip in the finest traffic that Birmingham can offer. I've never really considered the exhaust fumes, but with the onset of the cold and damp over the last month or so, I've really noticed the fumes and as a mild asthmatic, my lungs have been noticeably more wheezy.

This has got me thinking, as a cyclist, how much crap am I inhaling and what is it doing to my long term health?

yellowjack

17,065 posts

165 months

Monday 24th November 2014
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I've no links right now, but I recall studies showing that you are far better off on a bicycle than you are sat in a car, with regard to traffic fumes. A quick google should run up some fact and figures, although I would read them with the caveat that they are often taken from studies used to promote cycling as healthy.

The logic, though, is sound. Your car takes in it's air from lower down than where you are breathing in your elevated position on the bike. Added to the fact that you are not sat still too often, stuck behind another vehicle discharging exhaust fumes almost directly into your own car, then I can see how it works. When it's cold, you can see the exhaust gases, and choose to wait on the other side to the tailpipe to avoid the worst of it, whereas you can't in a car, and once the fumes are in the car with you, toxic gases and the particulates that aren't scrubbed out by filtration get concentrated inside your car with you. I'm almost certain that the healthiest place to be on a short commute is a bicycle, long term.

oyster

12,577 posts

247 months

Monday 24th November 2014
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Does anybody else hold their breath when passing through a diesel 'cloud' caused by a taxi/bus/van/shed flooring it?

Followed by the inevitable panting a few seconds later.

bert11

286 posts

177 months

Monday 24th November 2014
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I always wonder how pro cyclists manage on training rides when being motorpaced behind a scooter ... maybe 4stroke scooter emissions are't too bad?

AyBee

10,522 posts

201 months

Monday 24th November 2014
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oyster said:
Does anybody else hold their breath when passing through a diesel 'cloud' caused by a taxi/bus/van/shed flooring it?

Followed by the inevitable panting a few seconds later.
yes

WinstonWolf

72,857 posts

238 months

Monday 24th November 2014
quotequote all
oyster said:
Does anybody else hold their breath when passing through a diesel 'cloud' caused by a taxi/bus/van/shed flooring it?

Followed by the inevitable panting a few seconds later.
You should try my delightful sounding country commute. When they're much spreading the pong lasts for a mile biggrin

Mr E

21,581 posts

258 months

Monday 24th November 2014
quotequote all
oyster said:
Does anybody else hold their breath when passing through a diesel 'cloud' caused by a taxi/bus/van/shed flooring it?

Followed by the inevitable panting a few seconds later.
I hate it when that happens

warp9

Original Poster:

1,583 posts

196 months

Monday 24th November 2014
quotequote all
yellowjack said:
I've no links right now, but I recall studies showing that you are far better off on a bicycle than you are sat in a car, with regard to traffic fumes. A quick google should run up some fact and figures, although I would read them with the caveat that they are often taken from studies used to promote cycling as healthy.

The logic, though, is sound. Your car takes in it's air from lower down than where you are breathing in your elevated position on the bike. Added to the fact that you are not sat still too often, stuck behind another vehicle discharging exhaust fumes almost directly into your own car, then I can see how it works. When it's cold, you can see the exhaust gases, and choose to wait on the other side to the tailpipe to avoid the worst of it, whereas you can't in a car, and once the fumes are in the car with you, toxic gases and the particulates that aren't scrubbed out by filtration get concentrated inside your car with you. I'm almost certain that the healthiest place to be on a short commute is a bicycle, long term.
I can see the logic, although have zero understanding on toxic gases, particulates, scrubbing etc. I can't help but think that on a vigorous ride where you are chugging in lungfuls of air/pollution (even if you are elevated a few feet), has to be worse than sitting serenely in a car behind some kind of filter?


yellowjack

17,065 posts

165 months

Monday 24th November 2014
quotequote all
https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-ins...
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/cy...
http://road.cc/content/news/105223-city-cycling-co...
http://cyclingincities.spph.ubc.ca/air-pollution/

Various articles there, with varying opinions/findings. I don't think there's a consensus on this issue. It seems to depend upon what those who commission the studies want the outcomes to be, what their political 'angle' is, if you will. Much will also depend upon the quality of the science, and what the parameters are. So many variables, and I don't think anyone has come up with a definitive answer just yet.

pembo

1,203 posts

192 months

Monday 24th November 2014
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I leave work just around the same time as a bus passes the door. I can get stuck behind the same bus for the whole route home if I'm not careful, breathing in it's stink. So I've taken to getting past it at a set of traffic lights and blowing it away up a hill.... breathing in bus fumes (or trying to avoid it) has done wonders for my fitness and hill climbing!!

bulldog5046

1,495 posts

177 months

Monday 24th November 2014
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yellowjack said:
I've no links right now, but I recall studies showing that you are far better off on a bicycle than you are sat in a car, with regard to traffic fumes. A quick google should run up some fact and figures, although I would read them with the caveat that they are often taken from studies used to promote cycling as healthy.

The logic, though, is sound. Your car takes in it's air from lower down than where you are breathing in your elevated position on the bike. Added to the fact that you are not sat still too often, stuck behind another vehicle discharging exhaust fumes almost directly into your own car, then I can see how it works. When it's cold, you can see the exhaust gases, and choose to wait on the other side to the tailpipe to avoid the worst of it, whereas you can't in a car, and once the fumes are in the car with you, toxic gases and the particulates that aren't scrubbed out by filtration get concentrated inside your car with you. I'm almost certain that the healthiest place to be on a short commute is a bicycle, long term.
Something about what you said didn't sound quite right there.

yellowjack said:
Your car takes in it's air from lower down than where you are breathing in
I wasn't too sure about the mass of each, as you tend to see exhaust gasses rise, not fall.

This article seems to suggest CO2 in it's purest form is lighter than 'air' but temperature of the exit will cause variance.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem03/chem0...

So, I think my conclusion might be the opposite. The lower you are, the cleaner the air.

ETA: I guess not being stuck in a sealed metal box is an important factor too.

Gruffy

7,212 posts

258 months

Tuesday 25th November 2014
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I'd have thought the positive health benefits comfortably outweigh any negatives.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 25th November 2014
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Most Councils have a contact you can call or email and report buses, trucks and vans that are heavy pollutants. Not sure there is anything you can do about private cars.

goldblum

10,272 posts

166 months

Tuesday 25th November 2014
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Gruffy said:
I'd have thought the positive health benefits comfortably outweigh any negatives.
Really?: You draw damaging particles deep into your lungs from petrol and diesel fumes, tyres, brakes and God knows what else. Millions of tiny particles pass into the bloodstream and reach all organs of the body.


Professor Ross Anderson of the government's advisory committee on the medical effects of air pollutants said: "While the health benefits of cycling are likely to be beneficial, the balancing of risks is problematic. Other epidemiological evidence suggests that traffic pollution has lasting health effects."

London has quite damaging air pollution: https://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/environment/c...


Edited by goldblum on Tuesday 25th November 12:54

warp9

Original Poster:

1,583 posts

196 months

Tuesday 25th November 2014
quotequote all
Hi guys, thanks for your input.
So my summary so far is that:

a) Vehicle pollution is bad for you, but there doesn't seem to be an independent study of how much.
b) Cycling is good for you, but that may or may not be outweighed if cycling in traffic.
c) Conflicting studies as to whether you are more polluted sitting in a car or cycling.

Is anyone else bothered by this?!

goldblum

10,272 posts

166 months

Tuesday 25th November 2014
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The solution might be to cycle the 'long way round', i.e. avoid as much traffic as possible. Or wear a mask maybe. As you seem to breathe in just as much pollution sat in a car in a line of traffic the defining difference seems to be cyclists breathe the pollution much deeper into their lungs.

E38

723 posts

212 months

Tuesday 25th November 2014
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I read a study (scientific, not just anecdotal, cant remember where I found it unfortunately) recently that along a busy road of stop-start traffic a cyclist was exposed to relatively less particulates than the drivers of the cars doing the aforementioned stopping and starting. I think this is due to the little to no 'filtration' in the air-con/ventilation of cars, the fact that the driver is sat in the middle of the line of traffic where the majority of 'pollutants' are concentrated, while the cyclist is on the edge of the 'tube' of pollutants, with any prevailing wind or deviation from the line of cars only reducing their exposure. And this was ignoring the fact that the cyclist will most likely complete a journey from A-B in stop-start traffic faster than a car for obvious reasons.

In response to the OP, colder weather increases likelihood of asthmatic response, so I doubt its the pollution alone that has been increasing the wheeze.

Dammit

3,790 posts

207 months

Tuesday 25th November 2014
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Might be interesting to look at exposure per mile travelled - motorised vehicles average 9mph in town, I average 16mph, so for the same distance my exposure window is significantly shorter - is that balanced by deeper breathing?

griffter

3,981 posts

254 months

Wednesday 26th November 2014
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I worry about the effects of really deep breathing on the bike when pushing hard up hill. Any particulates will get right deep down and get stuck there - lungs are sticky. Obviously the body has ways of clearing contestants but I do wonder what's in the bottom of my lungs never to see the light of day again.

rohrl

8,711 posts

144 months

Wednesday 26th November 2014
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I always wonder about this when I watch the TdF riders climbing mountains about 18" behind a motorcycle. Surely they'd be even quicker if they weren't sucking exhaust fumes straight out of the tailpipe.