Bad driving linked to air pollution, scientific research suggests

BEIJING: You turn a corner and there it is: that traffic-stalling on-off of crimson brake lights animating a staccato driver up ahead.

It turns out that this apparent lack of awareness of clutch and gear is not only a sign of poor motoring skills, but a cause of pollution, going by research published in the American Geophysical Union (AGU) journal Atmospheres.

The brake wear associated with excessive stop-start driving is a major cause of metal particles in city air where they can harm human health, according to the researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China University of Geosciences in Wuhan.

The potential hazard posed by metallic particles of antimony means it is "essential" to find out where it originates "to manage it effectively," according to the scientists, who claimed their research as the first to make use of the metal’s "unique isotopic fingerprints" to track it in urban air pollution.

In recent years, scientists have increasingly scrutinised additional sources of emissions from cars beyond exhaust fumes, notably tyre wear, which like brake wear, can lead to health impacts also from electric cars, often marketed as having zero emissions.

Air pollution, much of it in and around cities, has been estimated to cause one in six premature deaths worldwide and has been linked to conditions such as autism to cerebral palsy.