Why Motorbikes Can Be Worse for the Planet Than Cars

Kate Sheppard is reporting this week from Vietnam, where she’s learning how the country is already adapting to climate change. To read her first dispatch—from a farm where one family is planting a new type of watermelons designed to withstand weird weather caused by global warming—click here. Her second dispatch, about too much salt in the Mekong Delta, is here.

Hanoi is easily among the world’s most polluted cities. Some experts even think it’s the worst in Southeast Asia, but there are plenty of others that provide stiff competition. It’s apparent even as you approach the city, since the urban skyline is obscured by a heavy haze. Before coming here, I’d heard I would never see the sun in Hanoi. That has proven not to be much of an exaggeration.

But unlike in US cities, the nasty air here isn’t from a fleet of cars. It’s from all the motorbikes and mopeds, which number at least 1.8 million in Hanoi. (That estimate is from 2008, however, and is likely far too low now given that the population has since swelled to 7 million.) Nationwide, there are about 20 million on the roads, buzzing and zigzagging along.

The streets of Hanoi are a free-for-all of two-wheeled transit. Divider lines are treated more like suggestions than commands, and crossing the street on foot is only for the brazen. I’ve seen people texting, chatting on the phone, smoking, eating, even reading as they zip past. They carry panes of glass, giant ice cubes, impossibly large loads of rice and beer. On Sunday, I saw a guy carrying another motorcycle on the back of his motorcycle. Parents stow toddlers between them, sometimes fitting an entire nuclear family on one bike. 

It’s hard to imagine what the congestion would be like here if all those cycles were cars. But when it comes to air pollution, all these motorcycles are actually worse than cars. They do get much better miles-per-gallon of gasoline and thus emit less climate-changing carbon emissions. But they produce more of the nasty stuff like carbon monoxide and smog-forming pollutants, due to less sophisticated engine design and a general lack of emission standards on two-wheeled transit, particularly in the developing world. (Last fall’s season premiere of the TV show “Mythbusters” focused on the subject of the comparative environmental impact of motorcycles and cars, in fact.)

Many motorcyclists don full-coverage face masks to block out at least the larger particles. Still, the small-particle pollution, which the face masks can’t filter, is four times higher here than acceptable levels set by the World Health Organization, Than Nien News recently reported. It presents a huge challenge for Hanoi, one that the government is paying more attention to because of the major threat it poses for public health. Meanwhile, the traffic here continues to increase by 12 to 15 percent each year.

It’s hard to capture just how many motorcycles there are here in a photo, since the frenetic energy of all that motion it doesn’t really transfer in a photo. But here’s an attempt:

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate