On number plates and emissions

 

A UN staff member in Kigali drives a car from Merelbeke, Belgium
 

It is an old habit when I am on the road: looking at the number plates of the cars in the traffic around me.

A Swedish car in Kigali, picture LP

As children, during long car journeys, we played games such as collecting as many cars of a certain nationality or collecting as many cars of a certain brand. Whoever picked "Mercedes", "Volkswagen" or "BMW" fastest on the Deutsche autobahn usually won the game.

Car watching, in other words. I still do it today.

In South Africa, I paid particular attention to the number plates. From those, you could tell which province the car was registered in. Personalised number plates are another interesting phenomenon. What possesses someone to drive around with "Wanted" on the car? Or "Hero"? It led to free associations and musings on the relationship between number plate, car and owner.

A Dutch car in Kigali, picture: LP

Here in Rwanda, it is other things again that stand out, more specifically the details on the back of the car. If you look closely, you can sometimes see a reference to the previous owner next to the Rwandan number plate. Was it a Swede, a Dutchman, a German or a Belgian? In which garage was the car bought? Yesterday I saw a car from Evergem, a small town in Belgium, in Kigali.

Screenshot IQ Air app, 25/9/2022
Many of the cars driving around here could be registered as "old timers" in Europe because they are over 25 years old. And because they are so old, they do not meet the emission standards that apply in European cities at all. Those cars were banned from cities like Ghent, Antwerp or Amsterdam to improve air quality. Air quality did indeed improve. Everyone happy, mission accomplished.

Good riddance of all these dirty old car. Or was it? Those polluting cars were put on transport, .... to Africa. The air quality in Kigali systematically scores worse than that in Ghent, Belgium. Most likely  where all those outdated and poorly maintained cars play a leading role in this. When I cycle to work and am once again enveloped in a thick, black cloud of exhaust fumes, I actually long for face-mask time.

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