CLOSE THE WINDOWS!
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CARBON monoxide concentrations inside vehicles in heavy traffic often exceed those found at the roadside, according to a report published by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory.
Eleven new cars were driven on a 35km (22 mile) course which included a stretch of motorway, a major access road into London and some of the busiest roads around the city centre.
The average time taken to cover the journey was 75 minutes and it was found that waiting in dense traffic produced the highest carbon monoxide levels inside the cars.
Another finding was that the self-polluting capability of a vehicle with closed windows is small and the large majority of the internal carbon monoxide was produced by other traffic.
Average levels of carbon monoxide between 12 and 60 parts per million were found inside the cars and these levels were between 30 and 80 per cent of the external concentrations.