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Comment by Erratic6576 | Hacker News Reader

Yeah. I can no longer stand the smell of smoke no matter how far away. My wife hates me because we can’t sit on terraces to eat and drink next to smokers and traffic smoke

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Where do you live that smoking is allowed and common in shared outdoor spaces, and where catalytic converters aren't common?

It's not uncommon outdoors. Still the case in the UK--and almost certainly other areas in Europe--as far as I know.

Where I live, "beautiful bc," it was decided that emissions testing was ineffective so we stopped doing it. Also there's a rash of catalytic converter thefts. A real catalytic converter is expensive. A metal tube the same size and shape is less expensive and deters future theft. Put it together and there's a significant number of cars whose exhaust is way over legal limits but they only get caught if a cop feels like noticing. And the police are not known for treehugging.

Smoking is outlawed in parks, but allowed on sidewalks.

The USA actually has pretty strict emissions standards for diesel engines, so most cars on the road are relatively clean burning gasoline cars. But in parts of Europe or Asia, diesel vehicles are much more common, and their exhaust has a distinct smell from the sulfur and nitrogen oxides they produce.

>USA actually has pretty strict emissions standards for diesel engines, so most cars on the road are relatively clean burning gasoline cars.

If by that you mean bad smelling poorly running clunkers everywhere then yes. But mostly because we don't do emissions testing at all outside of one or two cities in my state.

No, I mean federal emissions standards of NOx. The ones that are so strict that Volkswagen had to cheat the tests just to pass.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#U...

I'm aware we're technically strict, but I don't see the EPA shutting down roll coal culture any time soon. It took us this long to catch Cummins[1] after VW got dragged through the courts. At this point I find it hard to believe any diesel motor truly passes US emission standards.

[1]https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/27/cummins-fined-1-67-bill...

Out here in the Southern US that's just the norm. I can smell poorly running 10-40 year old trucks and cars every day along side the newest diesel truck trying to roll coal on a Prius for shits and giggles. Add on top of that smelling peoples cigarette smoke two cars over and seeing them litter the cigarette butt.

We didn't get a Bar smoking ban locally until recently and at first it only targeted bars that serve food.

It's really common in German-speaking countries and in the Mediterranean.

> Where do you live that smoking is allowed and common in shared outdoor spaces

It's pretty common in France and Switzerland.

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