[00:05.82]Unit 9 Wheels Lesson 4 Car Culture

[00:10.50]The Road to Destruction

[00:13.48]"This morning it took me forty minutes

[00:15.36]to get to work.

[00:16.71]More road construction works on the A 10!"

[00:19.70]"Oh really? It took me over an hour.

[00:21.93]There was an accident on the M11."

[00:24.67]"You're both luckly.It took me two hours!

[00:27.41]You don't have to use the M25."

[00:30.27]How often have you heard these conversations?

[00:33.13]How often do we get stuck in traffic jams?

[00:36.35]How often do we arrive at work

[00:38.26]or school stressed out,tired and angry?

[00:42.70]For many people in Britain,

[00:43.98]the answer is every day.

[00:46.19]But anger and stress are nothing compared

[00:48.21]to the real costs of the motor car.

[00:50.57]Here are some figures:

[00:52.72].In the last ten years,

[00:54.42]the number of cars on the roads

[00:55.98]in Britain has gone up by 30%.

[00:59.49].There are now 25 million cars in this country.

[01:03.69].Over three thousand people die every year

[01:06.52]in road accidents in Britain.

[01:09.26].In London,car engines produce 99%

[01:12.30]of all carbon monoxide in the atmosphere.

[01:16.03].Twenty-five thousand deaths per year

[01:18.04]are caused by air pollution.

[01:20.75].Some types of cancer

[01:21.95]are related to traffic pollution.

[01:24.65].Traffic is one of the major causes of global

[01:27.47]warming and climate change.

[01:30.05]The average global temperature

[01:31.90]is about 0.5 degrees centigrade higher

[01:34.98]than it was 100 years ago.

[01:36.08]