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Comment by _dain_ | Hacker News Reader

On a related note, I cycle a lot, and I wondered if the health benefits of doing so were outweighed by all the particle pollution I had to be breathing in from motor traffic. But apparently the air quality is even worse inside cars compared to outside:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...

Plus the upholstery is probably outgassing all kinds of nasty plastic shit ... "new car smell" = cancer.

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There should be a law stating that the air quality inside cars should be at least as bad as the air quality for pedestrians/cyclists.

The last thing we need is a Darwinian advantage for polluters.

Replace inside cars with inside the corporate boardrooms/lounges of car, tire, etc, manufacturers and I'm in.

Knowing what I know now I would wear an N95 if I were doing any strenuous roadside cycling. Same for yard work that stirs up a lot of dust or generally during pollen season.

from the paper you cited:

"Nevertheless, we should mention that the inhalation dose of commuters could be different from the exposure levels. Dons et al. (2012) found that exposure to BC during travel in motorised transport was clearly higher than exposure while walking or biking (6.3 μg/m3 versus 3.4 μg/m3), but when accounting for inhaled doses, this relationship was reversed. Cyclists seem to receive the highest inhaled PM2.5 dose followed by bus and car passengers (McNabola et al., 2008). However, in the present study we do not examine the inhaled dose of pollutants during commuting due to the lack of studies determining it and also its complexity of interacting factors such as breathing rate, ventilation and/or particle deposition to the respiratory system."

Also, in the study, they said they drove with air-recirculation off, which I believe would mean the outside air does not get filtered. And outside air seems to be a major source of inhaled pollution, since electric vehicles have even higher measured pollution levels than gasoline.

> air-recirculation off, which I believe would mean the outside air does not get filtered

The entire point of the cabin air filter would be to filter outside air in that situation. I can’t think of a reason to have a cabin air filter that would not prioritize that situation first.

Depending on where you live may want to pay attention about general pollution. I often look at it before deciding to cycle or walk a lot, on days AQI goes up I can be occasionally coughing even without lots of physical activity

With our air quality sensor, we've noticed that there are good and bad days for air quality regardless of any other apparent factor.

We've been thinking about making the sensor portable so it can alert when it's time to mask up because its often hard to be sure if you're not being unnecessarily exposed.

Recently I went for a walk at night. It was a bit hazy in car headlights and such but foolishly I didn't think much of it. When I got home I happened to turn on a flashlight & I realized the air was full of ~1mm ash particles, I believe from a prescribed burn nearby.

The few days after that I had shortness of breath and trouble concentrating. It was pretty alarming. Not wearing a mask, which I had with me, was a big mistake.

I think your suggestion is excellent.

It seems like you don't check AQI alerts in your area, so you probably did not shut your windows/doors in advance or run air filter indoors, so the exposure you get on a single walk is not as big as what accumulated in your home. That stuff you breathe day in day out and in your sleep.

So portable monitor in my view is overkill, I just check AQI in the area and close windows and run air filter indoors and don't cycle when it's bad.

But if it's a really convenient monitor I'd not mind it! In my experience accurate monitors are not small and not cheap though...

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