Banned Cars: Is Yours on the List?

According to a report in 'The Scotsman' newspaper, the councilors in Edinburgh, Scotland are considering the banning of cars over ten years of age from the center of the Festival City. Stuttgart in Germany has already banned cars that old from their city center, unless they have been brought up to the emission standards of 1996.

Don't be alarmed. If the idea spreads over here to the US, it won't make the slightest difference to you or the pollution in the city. It is nothing more than grandstanding. No classic car owner is going to drive his darling car into the city center. The same applies to owners of older cars. They aren't going to risk their 'mature' cars in the city's traffic jams in case they break down.

The next time you are in a city snarl up, have a look around and count how many older cars are sitting in the same polluting line up. If you estimate that 20% of the cars on the road are older than ten, every fifth car should be an oldie. I'll bet it isn't.

The '10 year old banned' - rule sounds very green but it is all just waffle; it will solve nothing.

We live in the countryside, and we own two older cars which we drive into the local town, but for the time consuming journey into the city, we take the train or the bus in to enjoy the bright lights. Talking of buses, do the ones in the city centers, some over 25 years old, meet the required emission standards?

Instead of the token gesture of banning older cars, I suggest the Edinburgh councilors amble along our street on a cold winter morning. Simply standing in our driveway, they will be able to see at least 13 cars, half of them over ten years old, idling to get them warmed up. The newer cars have been started by remote control - an invention which makes us even lazier than normal.

None of these vehicles go anywhere near a city center; in fact most of them only travel a few miles to their destination. They probably use more fuel - and produce more noxious gases - idling than they do traveling. Why not ban idling instead of the farcical ban on city center driving?

The average life of a car is around 12 years. If these new rules become law, it won't be long before any vehicle over ten years of age is banned, no matter how many catalytic converters it has.

Taking mankind's ingenuity into account, it figures that cars and trucks will eventually become greener and greener until cars over 5 year old are considered a danger to the planet. Perhaps the day will come when we will have disposable automobiles as well as disposable cell-phones? Have the Edinburgh councilors considered the environmental effect that recycling and manufacturing new cars will have on the planet's resources and air quality?

Leave the older cars alone, I say. They have paid for themselves. They owe us nothing.

Source: 'Practical Classics.'