Advocacy & Safety - Second-hand smoke

All this hub-bub about "second-hand smoke" from cigarettes has employers scurrying for cover. Restaurants separate you (or ban you) if you smoke. The very society we live in has rejected smoking as an accepted social practice. This tipping of the scales has accelerated the downfall of tobacco use (though it persists, nonetheless).

But not to worry, mates. If you miss the second-hand cigarette smoke, just step outside for a breath of second-hand car exhaust.

Hypocrites!

Smoke and car-exhaust are both evil. I'm no hypocrite, I have nothing to do with either! :mad:

Chris

Ah, the power of social pressure. (Remember when drunk driving was winked at, wrist-slapped, and joked about?) Now we need to harness and to channel social pressure to make SUV ownership unfashionable and transportation cycling fashionable.

I strongly sense sarcasm/satire in Pete's post, but I'll bite, anyway. I'm with Chris on the smoke vs. smog thing. I am a near-charter member of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights (since back when it was Californians for Nonsmokers' Rights), I did my PhD thesis on mathematical relationships between auto exhaust component concentrations and photochemical smog formation, and as an undergrad I worked on UCLA's Project Clean Air, under the guy who invented exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) [General Motors told him, a naive Czech immigrant, that it wouldn't work, then essentially stole his patent] and the fuel atomizing carburetor.

I used to work in a steel mill that had a no smoking policy inside the pulpits.The air outside was always clouded with only god knows what polutants.Funny.

I still dream of the day that body odor and car odor have the same social stigma.

Originally posted by kittyfury
I still dream of the day that body odor and car odor have the same social stigma.

They do in my view.

Chris

Actually there is more than cancer to be concerned about with inhaling pipe exhaust. The company that made tetraethyl lead and lied about it's hazardous effects, the Ethyl Corp. makes a new anti-knock additive. This additive is MMT. It is a neurotoxin. It specifically damages the parts of the brain which control impulse. I read a book on head injury which said, that without inhibiter chemicals, our reaction to frustration is to fight. Road rage stems from damage to this part of the brain. Now you know why drivers are such idiots on the road. Here are a few articles on the topic:
http://www.edf.org/issues/mmt.html
http://popularmechanics.com/science/research/1998/3/chemistry_of_violence/print.phtml
http://www.pitt.edu/DOC/96/87/55957/15.html
The good news is that they have carbon filter masks you can buy. They mostly keep out particulate matter- the stuff in diesel fuel that messes up the crevices of the lungs like asbestos. They filter out other stuff, like metal particles. Look on the brightside. We still live longer than our driver counter parts. Heart disease is the leading killer of older americans! Here's just one article on the topic:
http://www.self-propelled-city.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?task=article&artfile=stll-ppp.txt&dbcat=SUBJECT&itemsSeen=10&keyword=world
Here's another article I like: 'People Breath 10 Times More Pollutants Inside Cars than Out'
http://www.self-propelled-city.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?task=article&artfile=pb10tmpicto.txt&dbcat=SUBJECT&itemsSeen=10&keyword=car
This article is about dangerous diesel exhaust: "New Delhi, India is Choking to Death"
http://www.self-propelled-city.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?task=article&artfile=ND-Iictd.txt&dbcat=SUBJECT&itemsSeen=10&keyword=car
Here's an article about leukemia being related to car exhaust: http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2000/03/03042000/leuktraffic_10623.asp
Now for the solutions. Here are some sites which sell carbon filter masks: Greenscreen: http://www.mfiap.com/gs/index.htm
http://www.icanbreathe.com/favorite.htm
I learned a secret, though. Places that sell paint supplies and lumber, etc. often have carbon filter masks which look like they have filters as large as the ones they sell for messengers and hospitals. The ones I found in the large chain store I looked in was selling them for around seven bucks. This was great, since there are no places which sell masks around here. Ordering online sucks because you have to pay postage and wait. Greenscreens masks were around $10.00 not including postage. I pretty confident that a painters masks would be just as sufficient. They have to make them to filter out carcinogenic polyurethane paint fumes. A friend cyclist's dad was a painter and now has cancer from working around polyurethane. Some of the more expensive painters masks looked one step away from a gas mask and may filter even more. It may be heavier, though. If you are dirt poor or want a mask while you wait for one you ordered, charcoal can be a good homemade carbon filter. I have know people to use it for makeshift air masks, and water filters! (ick!)

The concerns spelled out in the above post explain why, given a choice, I always use the backstreets. Another thing I do is to slow down when a particularly bad one (i.e. a truck or something) passes me. I don't mind riding like a granny for a few hundred metres to save my lungs. :)

Chris

Originally posted by Chris L
The concerns spelled out in the above post explain why, given a choice, I always use the backstreets. Another thing I do is to slow down when a particularly bad one (i.e. a truck or something) passes me. I don't mind riding like a granny for a few hundred metres to save my lungs. :)

Chris
Why is it that Chris L. always makes so much sense? ;)

Another argument for cycling vs. driving: cycling alerts you daily of your need to keep healthy (which, in turn, keeps you healthy, etc.). Driving demands just enough of your physical man (or woman) so as to alert you to practically nothing. :confused:

FYI in London and Machester (UK) I have seen some cyclists with some purifying mask thing over their mounth.

I have seen this mask once in Atlanta. Though it probably is smart, I don't know if I could do it in summer. But then again, people once thought helmets were silly.

Leukemia ain't worth my sweating from a mask, believe me. Nor is brain damage or anything else. I'd even go so far as to propose a bike strike in protest.

Originally posted by PapeteeBooh
FYI in London and Machester (UK) I have seen some cyclists with some purifying mask thing over their mounth.

Take a look at:http://www.respro.com :)

Take a look at:http://www.respro.com

They ain't cheap

How much does a lung transplant cost these days?

Originally posted by Weasel


Take a look at:http://www.respro.com :)
Now we need a mask to filter ozone!

Better yet, no mask at all. Create a clean fuel!!! :mad:

;)

Originally posted by Allister
How much does a lung transplant cost these days?

Precisely.:(

I had to buy a new saddle today (my other one was stuffed). Now masks, lung transplants and all other things are totally out of my financial reach :(

Chris

Maybe through genetic research they will be able to mutate us to produce an enhance spece of riders with extra strong skull, a third lung and some other gimmick. That would work as well now, wouldn't it?:D

Originally posted by PapeteeBooh
Maybe through genetic research they will be able to mutate us to produce an enhance spece of riders with extra strong skull, a third lung and some other gimmick. That would work as well now, wouldn't it?:D
Yes, come to think of it, this is already in nature's plan! We cyclists are "mutating" larger legs, stronger heart, better lungs, etc. ;)