London Mayor Ken Livingstone is to announce that the London Low Emission Zone is going ahead with fines of £200 a day for operators who dare to enter London with non-complying vehicles. No surprise there as when Ken consults, the decision is as good as made.
He will call it an environmental measure, but it is curious way to help the environment. For the scheme solely rates trucks on their output of particulates. Ken strangely ignores nitrogen oxides (NOx) and carbon dioxide (CO2) output.
But we have to be careful here. If you criticise the scheme as inadequate, it invites Ken to think of an even harsher regime.
The real problem is not the fines or the zone, it is the piece-meal approach. Europe has tough emission rules that have forced truck makers to dramatically clean up their vehicles. What he should be doing is giving an incentive to take old trucks off the road and replaced with the most modern vehicles. It is incentives that are needed, not fines.
London is getting a bad deal. It will cost huge amounts of money because the zone goes out to cover almost all the M25. The cost of putting enforcement cameras over such a large zone will be huge. And even if it is effective, it will only reduce particulates, which do nothing about the greenhouse gases. This is more about posing and votes than health and the environment.
Comments (1)
I can't help but agree with Andrew brown's comments about the LEZ. Many months ago Commercial Motor challenged Transport for London's claim that the LEZ would target the most polluting vehicles on the road. How then did they account for the emissions from the millions of cars which dwarf the numbers of commercial vehciles on London's roads? They had no answer then and they have no answer now - except that to target cars would be unenforceable and would of course reflect poorly in the ballot box.
But how will they enforce the LEZ? Who is to enforce it? If anyone can train bobbies and traffic wardens to spot the difference between a Euro-2 and a Euro-3 truck, or know at a glance whether a Euro-4 vehicle has its AdBlue tank full, we would like to meet them. Determining emissions levels is a tricky business and not something that can be determined at the roadside. How much better would it have been to drive all old vehicles, commercial or passenger, off the capital's roads?
Posted by louise cole | May 9, 2007 12:46 PM
Posted on May 9, 2007 12:46