Will cyclists face ban from London offices?

You may have noticed that the anti-smoking bigots have now moved onto the fantasy dangers of what they are terming 'third hand smoke' - meaning the smoke smell that adheres to the clothing of smokers. Smokers, they declare, are covered in nasty PMs and carcinogenic PAHs and BaPs and they should wear disposable plastic onesies every time they have a fag.

No one, ever, has died from second hand or third hand cigarette smoke. Meanwhile, 5,000 Londoners a year are actually dying prematurely from the effects of vehicle air pollution. This blog has pointed out before (HERE  HERE and HERE ) that London's roadsides actually expose one to many times the levels of harmful particulates, chemicals and benzene derivatives than being locked in a closed car with a chain-smoker. London's worst roads have eight times the concentration of harmful substances than a smoky car, according to Aberdeen University. 

Now a lobby group called Clean Air in London has squeezed a full set of London air quality data out of Boris and the real situation is worse than anyone imagined; the worst roads for PM 2.5s are actually as follows;

Now you have to feel sorry for cyclists - I mean those who commute to the office by bike. They're actually exposing themselves to the very worst levels of air pollution, far worse than making the same journey sealed inside a car with a smoker. And when they get to the office ... yep, they're covered in nasty PMs and carcinogenic PAHs and BaPs and all the things the third-hand-smoke faddists rant against. So will cyclists who don't shower and change clothes when they arrive at work be banned from the workplace along with smokers?

Enjoying your smoke-free pubs?

Well, I'm out of London again today, so I'll leave all the clean-air non-smoking pubs to those smug Time Out reading metrophiles to enjoy.

As the view from Hampstead Heath (above) published in the Mail shows, London is set for another suffocating smog today. It's not only the particulates - PM10s and PM2.5s - but the NO, and particularly the carcinogenic PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) levels that Londoners will be breathing today - a rich soup. So bad in fact that if the 2003 smog mortality figures are a guide, several hundred Londoners will die today.


It's estimated that particulates alone kill 29,000 a year in the UK. Cancers and birth defects from the PAHs, and particularly the BaPs, could kill as many again.  Geoffrey Lean outlines the causes in the Telegraph; no, not filthy smokers, but cars. 


Cigarettes of course also produce particulates, NO and PAHs. This was the reason the banners wanted them banned. If you were locked in a small 3m2 chamber with a smoker who smoked an entire cigarette, the air inside would only have a PAH level of 0.5 - 8 ng/m³ . Today in London, levels on the roads will reach something like 120 ng/m³ . Even on normal days, PAH levels on London roads are around 35 ng/m³ . And you're breathing this with every single breath, every minute, every hour, for days on end. 

So let's admit it, shall we? Banning smoking has absolutely nothing at all to do with the actual health risks of passive smoking, and everything to do with bigotry, prejudice, twisted science and spite. So suck in the smog, you Hoons, and enjoy.