How damaging to your health are exhaust fumes?

[warp9]

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?

[warp9]

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?

[warp9]

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?!