Fewer than one in ten motorists left their cars in the garage during
this month鈥檚 smogs, according to a survey carried out for the Department
of the Environment.
On Friday 15 July the department issued a warning about high ozone
levels and asked people to avoid driving. Over that weekend it interviewed
more than a thousand people. Of the 700 drivers questioned, 67 said they
had not used their car on at least one occasion. However, some people found
the questions confusing. 鈥楧uring the high levels of air pollution,鈥� they
were asked, 鈥榙id you personally think about whether you really needed to
use your car?鈥� Some 13 per cent of nondrivers said 鈥榶es鈥�.
The Department of Transport has more than 250 automatic traffic counters
around the country monitoring traffic levels, but could not say whether
there was a drop in the number of cars on the smoggy days. Figures will
not be available for a 鈥榗ouple of months,鈥� it says.
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The Department of the Environment commissioned its survey to discover
how effective its air pollution warnings were in alerting the public to
smogs that could trigger asthma attacks or cause breathing problems for
people with respiratory diseases such as bronchitis. As well as asking
people to avoid driving, its alert on 15 July warned them against taking
strenuous exercise. Around six out of ten people had heard warnings about
air pollution but only half of these could remember any specific advice
associated with it.
Environment minister Robert Atkins said the survey 鈥榗learly shows that
the information and advice issued by my department was listened to and
acted upon鈥�.
