If you’re a regular commuter by a mode of transport other than car (or perhaps you have a chauffeur), you may have already read the article that tickled my funny-bone when on the way to work this morning. It was an absolute, and I mean absolute, classic. Whilst the government is spending all this hard earned cash on telling us what to do in order to avoid putting out more CO2 than we need to, an overwhelming majority are remaining absolutely bloody clueless. What do I mean by that?
Let’s put it this way. Four percent of us think a hybrid car is two cars welded together. If you’re one of them can I just quickly say “Oh my lord”. As James May might say, “What a clot”. I’m sorry, but you are. Unless of course you were joking. In which case, I might let you off. I just have a horrible feeling that you aren’t though. Let me be clear on this, a car made from two vehicles is called a ‘cut and shut’, is incredibly dangerous and absolutely illegal. A hybrid car however normally means a car with a petrol engine and an electric engine. Therefore hybrid as it has two types of power.
Amazingly though, there are the same percentage of people who are firmly entrenched in their belief that those wonderful new electric cars leak battery acid. How much? Who knows. I hope it doesn’t just dangerously spurt all over the road. Those who think that hydrogen cars produce water are at least partially right though (they also produce some heat).
Most worrying of all for the government is the 25 percent of people who believe that biofuel cars will produce no CO2 at all. Ironic given that all our petrol is now a ‘bit’ bio-fuel (5% is still from crop sources, unless the government have backtracked on that as well) yet my car still produces the same amount of CO2, I’m sure yours does too.
What about our carbon footprint? Well, frankly it’s a ridiculous term and far too hard a ‘sell’ for most people. I’m not surprised that 85 percent of people have no idea what their car’s emissions are. Who cares? Well, some people do thanks to the road tax hike. For a lot of people though, this is still simply a non-issue. I suppose the irony of surveys in general was shown up in the last statement of the report (from the British Motor Show): 70 percent of people want to reduce their emissions. A bit weird isn’t it then that 85 percent have no idea how much CO2 their car puts out?
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