Drivers and pedestrians have been misled by EU tests aimed at cutting lethal air pollution
WHEN Victoria Kelly sets off around her home city of Manchester she finds the fastest roads — and then goes out of her way to avoid them.
Instead she plots a route that will take her around the clouds of diesel air pollution found along those busier roads, sticking to the leafiest and smallest streets she can find.
It means simple journeys can double in length, but for Kelly, 23, the detours are vital to avoid the airborne toxins that have twice put her into intensive care with asthma attacks like those that have killed two of her friends.
“An attack is like breathing out through a straw into a bucket of sand with an elephant sitting on your chest,” she said. “Air pollution is one of the most likely things to set it off — so I do all I can to avoid it.”
Kelly is one of 5.4m people in Britain diagnosed with asthma. The condition kills three people a day — and traffic pollution, mainly from diesel vehicles, is a key cause. A fifth of those are children — such as Will Cort, a 13-year-old whose childhood in central London has been blighted by asthma.
“I normally get attacks at night and wake up because I can’t breathe. It can go on for days,” he says.
Will Cort, 13, who lives in central London, says he frequently finds it difficult to breathe (Image: F. Guidicini)
Asthma can be triggered by many factors but it is no coincidence that whenever air pollution levels rise, Britain’s hospitals and GPs see a surge of patients with asthma. Last month Public Health England published research showing that thousands of people suffered attacks when smog laden with tiny “particulate” particles and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) gas typical of diesel emissions hit Britain last spring.
Read more: The Sunday Times