London’s love affair with the car must end
‘For most people in inner London there is no need to drive a car’
• “A SEISMIC shift in thinking and acting, on a national scale” is exactly what is needed, (LTNs are a divisive issue that won’t go away, Letters, August 4)[1].
It seems that every day a news item lets us know that the climate crisis is more and more critical.
There are, of course, people who genuinely depend on their own four wheels for their transport. But many other motorists need to rethink their need for a car, even if it is electric.
Electric cars don’t pollute London with their exhausts, but in manufacture they use precious metals and pollute when braking and from tyre wear.
Our love affair with cars has to end in London.
For most people in inner London there is no need to drive a car. Already there are very few car drivers in central London as we are lucky to have the best and cheapest transport system in the country.
Human beings have been moving around this world for thousands of years before the internal combustion engine was invented.
Until 1896, only 127 years ago, a car owner could only travel at 5mph and needed a person with a red flag walking in front of the vehicle.
Bicycles, strangely, were far more popular. And horses (with their carts) were an important form of transport.
The climate crisis is with us and we all need to think about changes to our way of life.
A well-informed Islington resident told me that all we can do now is damage limitation in terms of “saving the planet.”
We need to do all we can to ensure there is a world worth passing on to following generations, including those yet to be born.
KEITH MACFARLANE, N19
References
- ^ (LTNs are a divisive issue that won’t go away, Letters, August 4) (www.islingtontribune.co.uk)