Quote:
Originally Posted by strat61caster
You'd have to be nuts to drive in those cities anyway. It's a token effort that will have almost zero environmental benefit in the grand scheme of things.
Cars will eventually move out of major cities due to congestion naturally as public transit and ride sharing improves. The only thing laws like this do is hurt a minority of gear heads (which will move out of the city if the laws affect them), stroke the egos of a few politicos, and drive ad-revenue to clickbait either praising or condemning the measure depending on what internet bubble you live in.
I don't condemn speeding up the process via governmental process, but singling out diesel is a half measure, might as well go all the way you pansies. Levy a congestion tax on all drivers like London does, tax all polluters equally whether you live in a city or not.
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I have spoken to Europeans who claim that diesel soot gets everywhere over there. Supposedly in some areas, you can wipe it off of a railing or a park bench and get black on your thumb. They don't have as strict emissions laws over there that the states has (the reason that VW got in trouble over here first and the reason that many of the European diesels are never brought to the states because they can't pass the EPA cycle). They are also running about 50% diesel ownership as opposed to our single digit rate of ownership or whatever tiny number it is, which is why you don't see this sort of an effect over here.
In reality, these large particles are less harmful than the smaller ones we aren't seeing that come from both gasoline and diesel tailpipes. They're still disgusting though, and they're not exactly good. I could see banning them based on that alone, with an exemption for heavy trucking.
I would think this would eventually extend to all internal combustion. Hopefully with an exemption for things like classics and weekend toys. A city environment is the perfect application for electric vehicles or hybrids with ICE range extenders that don't kick on very often. Even though the source of the electricity typically isn't green itself, at least you don't have a bunch of cars concentrating all of those emissions in the city.