Megan’s Garden

Exhaust Fumes

As you probably already know, I sit outside a shop in the village every afternoon after about four o’clock. I have been doing it for ten years, but my wife stopped sitting with me about a year ago because she said that the exhaust fumes were getting to her chest. She has stopped resting here for ten minutes while walking the baby in her pram for the same reason.

Therefore, I began a campaign to make local villagers aware of the dangers of exhaust fumes a few months ago, but it is an incredibly up-hill struggle. You see, the shop has a forecourt which runs right into the shop and most people arrive on motorcycles, so they drive up as close as they can get.

Again, most people leave their engines running while their shopping is brought to them, or while they go in to get it for themselves. However, this means that there are often three, four, five or even ten engines pumping out exhaust fumes for us all to breathe in and cleanse using our lungs as filters.

Several occurrences are common enough to be daily sights:

1) the shop is full of exhaust fumes

2) babies sitting in special chairs on the back of motorcycles are trapped in this poisonous smog

3) the shopkeeper and I are left to live in it long after the motorcyclists have left

4) people actually point their exhaust pipes at you without thinking when they restart their machines.

Some people only need telling about their exhaust fumes once, but most need a reminder every time they come here, and the shopkeeper is worried that if she upsets anyone they will shop elsewhere.

I understand that, but if something doesn’t change soon, she won’t live long enough to spend all the money she’s making, she’ll die of cancer like her father did. One thing’s for sure though, I’m not putting up with the exhaust fumes of lazy motorcyclists who have been told and told for much longer, I’ll find another watering hole.

In fact, I already have one in mind where the motorcyclists can’t drive onto the forecourt and so their exhaust fumes are not a problem – at least not to me.

All the best,

Owen

Please visit list of books I’ve written here

Podcast: Exhaust Fumes