London Air Quality - Pollution

I think I'm suffering from late onset allergy to exhaust fumes, probably diesel particulates - at least that's what my GP thinks.

I fear that this has been caused, at least in part, by too much riding in London for too many years. Last year I was so bad that I was more or less prevented from riding at all. This year I'm quite a lot better, but not perfect. However I have made a point of riding as little as possible in central London, and generally when I go for a ride I start off in the car to get away from Willesden before I start riding. This is not how it ought to be.

One point that I would like to raise here, particularly because I haven't seen it made elsewhere, is that the majority of new car sales are now diesels. Yes, I know they've got particle filters, but as I understand it these don't work even on pm10's, let alone 2.5's. So there's not going to a huge gain from having electric cabs, when virtually every other vehicle on the road is diesel.

The DPF is just something put there by car manufacturers to keep the EU happy, they only remove the larger particles letting a lot of of the smaller more harmful get through. Things are only going to get worse, no one has the balls to stand up and say it isn't ok and do something proactive about it. Despite the British government being fined for failing to keep pollution below the threshold nothing will happen from it, the fine will be paid and things will go along as usual.