The Road to Destruction

"This morning it took me forty minutes to get to work. More road construction works on the A 10!"

"Oh really? It took me over an hour. There was an accident on the M11."

"You're both luckly.It took me two hours! You don't have to use the M25."

How often have you heard these conversations? How often do we get stuck in traffic jams? How often do we arrive at work or school stressed out,tired and angry? For many people in Britain, the answer is every day. But anger and stress are nothing compared to the real costs of the motor car. Here are some figures: In the last ten years, the number of cars on the roads in Britain has gone up by 30%. There are now 25 million cars in this country. Over three thousand people die every year in road accidents in Britain. In London,car engines produce 99% of all carbon monoxide in the atmosphere. Twenty-five thousand deaths per year are caused by air pollution. Some types of cancer are related to traffic pollution. Traffic is one of the major causes of global warming and climate change. The average global temperature is about 0.5 degrees centigrade higher than it was 100 years ago.