February 15, 2019
Despite years of efforts by the Tehran municipality to reduce pollution from cars, Tehranis continue to choke in the air of the capital city.
One reason is that many resourceful car-owners have found ways to sneak around the rules.
Take the emission standards: all four- and two-wheeled vehicles in Tehran are required to undergo checks to make sure they don’t pump out too many pollutants. A large percentage of the cars can’t make it; for example, 70 percent of the ancient Paykans still on the road—production halted 13 years ago—failed the latest emission tests.
What’s to be done? Buying and installing a new catalytic converter costs some 10 million rials ($83), which is a lot of money for most folks driving Paykans. But the Financial Tribune says many Paykan owners rent the device about 1 million rials ($8), and return it after they have passed the emission test with flying colors.
Then there’s the rule that only allows cars with even-numbered license plates to enter the downtown zone on even-numbered days and odd-numbered plates on odd-numbered days. The odd-even rule has been in place since 2005 but will end soon.
Many families nowadays own two cars. Make sure you get the right numbers on your plates and hubby can drive to work every day while his wife drives the other car, but stays out of the downtown zone.
Originally, the odd-even rule only applied to cars. That meant many families bought a motorcycle to go downtown when the car couldn’t be used. It took a decade, but the municipality finally caught up with this racket and the odd-even rule was applied to motorcycles as well.
These methods work for the benefit of drivers, although not necessarily for their health. The Tehran Air Quality Control Co. reports that in the first 274 days of this Persian year the capital has seen 15 days of clean air (5 percent) with 218 days of poor air quality and 41 days unhealthy air quality.
