Are Red Lights Killing Commuters?

Most of recognize that driving in traffic is bad for your health, and sitting in traffic is even worse, but can red lights actually kill us?

Potentially.

With more cars than ever joining the roads, we are being exposed to increasing levels of air pollution as we undertake our daily commutes. So consider this: A recent study in the United Kingdom found that sitting at stoplights accounts for about 2 percent of the typical commute there. But those relatively few minutes are responsible for about 25 percent of the unhealthy particles that commuters breathe in during their drive.

“Air pollution was recently placed in the top ten health risks faced by human beings globally,” said lead author Prashant Kumar, a senior lecturer at the University of Surrey. “The World Health Organization linked air pollution to seven million premature deaths every year. Our time spent traveling in cars remained fairly constant during the past decade despite the efforts to reduce it.

With more cars than ever joining the roads, we are being exposed to increasing levels of air pollution as we undertake our daily commutes.

Intersections with lights are where drivers have to stop and start quickly can produce larger amounts of pollution, Therefore, with drivers hitting the gas to get moving again when the lights turn green, levels of the tiny particles produced by vehicle engines are up to 29 times higher than in areas where traffic flows freely.

Problems are similar in the United States, but get this, the average commute in the United Kingdom is about 90 minutes, or more than three times longer than in the U.S. And in the U.K., the types of vehicles and engines that run on gasoline and diesel fuel are different.

The U.S. fleet has fewer diesel vehicles, especially cars, than the U.K.

So, the bottom line is that red lights can indeed hurt us, so the shorter your wait in traffic, the better for your lungs and overall health.

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