<story><title>London girl could be first to have “air pollution” listed as cause of death</title><url>https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ella-kissi-debrah-could-become-first-death-attributed-to-air-pollution-in-united-kingdom/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>esotericn</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m very familiar with this part of London. I haven&amp;#x27;t quite lived on the road in question but I know people who have. It&amp;#x27;s not clear the exact location but I imagine it to be near a busy junction with lots of vehicles idling.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately in a system where people bid for housing this sort of thing is bound to happen. It&amp;#x27;s notably cheaper to live on a main road, near a pollution hotspot, etc; there&amp;#x27;s also commonly social housing in those sorts of locations, which makes moving less about marginal income and more about navigating a bureaucracy (if you&amp;#x27;re paying below market rent you may need double or triple the amount to move to a nearby privately rented place).&lt;p&gt;In my view we should heavily tax diesel cars out of existence, at least in busy cities. The alternatives are to either demolish large amounts of housing (the South Circular Road and A2 in London are lined with residential; so too are most major roads in the capital), to basically delete the road network, or to accept these deaths as a way of life.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>frereubu</author><text>I live in Brighton (55 miles south of London) and regularly come up by train. But as soon as it&amp;#x27;s more than me - my wife and daughter joining me to see an exhibition for example - it often costs more to travel by train than it does to drive (in my polluting diesel car I bought quite a while ago when people still thought they were good), including fuel, central London parking and the congestion charge, presuming we don&amp;#x27;t know three months in advance that we want to do that (when we&amp;#x27;d be able to buy cheap super-advance off-peak tickets). The ULEZ will change that calculation a bit. But the thing I hate the very most is the reduction of government subsidies for public transport when the effective subsidies for cars - including things like NHS treatment for this poor girl - is astronomical. I would &lt;i&gt;love&lt;/i&gt; my diesel car to be taxed out of existence. But unless there&amp;#x27;s some kind of provision for public transport (both cost and capacity) to balance that out, it&amp;#x27;s going to be a real shitshow.</text></comment>
<story><title>London girl could be first to have “air pollution” listed as cause of death</title><url>https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ella-kissi-debrah-could-become-first-death-attributed-to-air-pollution-in-united-kingdom/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>esotericn</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m very familiar with this part of London. I haven&amp;#x27;t quite lived on the road in question but I know people who have. It&amp;#x27;s not clear the exact location but I imagine it to be near a busy junction with lots of vehicles idling.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately in a system where people bid for housing this sort of thing is bound to happen. It&amp;#x27;s notably cheaper to live on a main road, near a pollution hotspot, etc; there&amp;#x27;s also commonly social housing in those sorts of locations, which makes moving less about marginal income and more about navigating a bureaucracy (if you&amp;#x27;re paying below market rent you may need double or triple the amount to move to a nearby privately rented place).&lt;p&gt;In my view we should heavily tax diesel cars out of existence, at least in busy cities. The alternatives are to either demolish large amounts of housing (the South Circular Road and A2 in London are lined with residential; so too are most major roads in the capital), to basically delete the road network, or to accept these deaths as a way of life.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>osrec</author><text>I believe they&amp;#x27;ve started the taxation in some sense. I can no longer drive my old diesel car in London without paying £18 per day for the privilege. That&amp;#x27;s enough to make me never want to drive it in central London.</text></comment>