Smoking tailpipes: double blow of NCT delays and rising costs

Could a backlog of NCT cases be causing an increase in the volume of cars belching out smoky fumes? — © Getty Images/imageBROKER RF

Eddie Cunningham

I’m blaming the cost-of-living increases and the backlog of NCT cases on what appears to me to be a big increase in the volume of cars belching out smoky fumes.

Coincidence? I suspect it isn’t.

I think people are just not bothering to mind their car until they have to for the NCT – and that could be some way off.

I think some people are more disposed to spending as little as possible on their car – and a survey by Ford would sustain that argument.

It found a high percentage of motorists are skipping their service schedule.

The most extreme case of blatant pollution was a dark-coloured car dispensing a smelly, acrid fog over the N4 as we headed back to Dublin recently.

It was quite impossible to make out the road markings beyond 20 metres.

As I say, it was an extreme example.

But there were several over the past week that I feel would not be spewing out the visible quantities of emissions under different prevailing circumstances.

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