A Fun Filled Morning at Bubwith Primary School

Last Tuesday I was invited by Oak Class at Bubwith Primary School to discuss the effects on the environment if the Howden weight limit had been approved. We had a really great morning and I would like to thank Miss Bailiss and Oak Class for giving me such a warm welcome and a fun filled morning. The following are some of things we discussed (I spent hours on the internet researching this!!!):

We looked at pollution from Trucks

How many lorries where on Britain’s roads in 1950? 480,000

How many cars where on Britain’s roads in 1950? 2 million

How many lorries are there on the road today? 450,000

How many cars are there on the roads today? 27 million

BUT more freight is carried by road now – Why? Lorries carried a maximum of 24 tonnes in 1950 but 44 tonnes now and are generally on the road longer.

How much CO2 do you think a lorry produces from using 1 lit of diesel? 2.63kg

How much CO2 do you think a diesel Ford Focus produces from using 1 lit of diesel? 2.63kg

Today’s 40 tonne trucks use 40% less fuel per tonne carried then 25 years ago.

It’s the km per lit that is important. A diesel Ford Focus is 5 times more economical than a 44 tonne truck BUT the truck can carry 300 times as much weight.

A truck does about 2 miles per lit whereas a Ford Focus does about 10 miles per lit.

Today’s trucks produce 80% less nitrous oxide and other nasty pollutants then 25 years ago.

Today’s large trucks have 6 axles where the large trucks of 25 years ago had 3; therefore each axle today carries 7.3 tonnes whereas 25 years ago this was 8 tonnes. Which truck would cause most damage to the road? The Older truck

One of today’s trucks carries the same as 12 x 7.5 tonne trucks – so would it be better to have one large truck or 12 smaller trucks?

And finally….. 20 of today’s modern trucks makes the same amount of noise as one truck of 25 years ago……

So if the proposed weight limit were to prevent HGVs from travelling through Howden’s Flatgate, which instead had to travel, an extra 16 miles to reach their destination how much extra fuel would be used? Answer - 8 lit of diesel, which equates to 21.04kg of CO2. So if this was to apply to 100 truck movements in a day that would be 800 lits or 2.104 tonnes of CO2 PER DAY.