Vehicle Related Pollution – Not all from the Tail Pipe

We often hear about vehicle tail pipe emissions as our biggest air pollution culprit. To that end Gov. Herbert just made another plea for everyone to buy Tier 3 gasoline. All that is fine, but it is not the cure all for our air pollution. Just one of the reasons why:

Studies show that approximately half of vehicle related pollution doesn’t come from tail pipes and fuel combustion, but from brake dust, tire wear, and suspended road dust. And much of that is contaminated with heavy metals which are extremely toxic to human cells, as much so as tail pipe emissions. Read more here.

The answer to that component of our pollution–reduce vehicle travel (more mass transit, no surprise there), but also to reduce speed limits which UPHE has called for for several years and for many reasons, i.e. reduced fuel consumption and green house gases, traffic noise, and less accident-related trauma and fatalities.

Of course UDOT has ignored us in the past, and in fact raised speed limits a few years ago. But we will keep pushing for reduced freeway speed limits because it’s simply the right thing to do for so many reasons, one of which is it will reduce air pollution.