A combination of jet...

A combination of jet lag, tradition and technology means that I’m writing this column at an absurdly unsociable hour from my temporary office-cum-studio on one of the best-known driving streets in the most notorious car city on the planet. I’m jet lagged because I’ve just travelled from China, which is eight hours ahead of the UK, to Los Angeles which is eight hours behind. So it’s little wonder that my body clock is more troubled than a Ford corporate accountant and I’m wide awake at 3.30am, penning these words on the eve of the LA Auto Show.

Being the traditionalist that I am, I hate this townтЂ™s newer, flashier hotels, where valet parking staff are employed to relieve you of your keys and do heaven knows what with your car

Being the traditionalist that I am, I hate this town’s newer, flashier hotels, where valet parking staff are employed to relieve you of your keys and do heaven knows what with your car. And that’s why, for nearly 20 years, I’ve loyally checked into the unfashionable but strangely endearing Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard, the place Led Zeppelin used to party in, and where Little Richard still lives. But, more importantly, they let you park your own car. And on the hi-tech front, I can just about file stories and do live radio broadcasts from my little hotel room, despite inadequate US power supplies and an unreliable laptop computer.

The environment and the effect the car has on it is a hotter topic than ever in LA right now. Toyota’s Prius is very much in evidence here, although curiously, Honda’s petrol-electric hybrid, the Civic IMA, is not. But for every clever, planet-saving Japanese automobile in this city, there seems to be countless big BMWs or powerful Porsches which are to La La Land what Mondeos and Vectras are to Blighty.

I know it’s often called the City of Lights, and from my hotel balcony I’m able to see millions of bulbs, most of which aren’t needed, never mind 24 hours a day. If only the people responsible for LA’s illuminations cut back a bit, the city could massively reduce its emissions, 80-90 per cent of which are not car-related. On the Boulevard itself, I can see colossal advertising hoardings lighting up the sky. Office buildings, shopping malls, restaurants and stores are all shining brightly, despite the fact they’re closed. An ocean of orange and white street lights and traffic signals dominate the view from my room, yet there are desperately few cars and even less pedestrians around. In the distance, I can even see LA Airport, which doesn’t operate flights in the early hours, but has so many multi-coloured lights that it must surely require its own power station.

Why can’t simple but effective, tried and tested sensors be installed so that all the bulbs in the City of Lights and elsewhere in the world come on only when drivers, riders and people on foot approach them? Such a move could immediately rid our atmosphere of billions of tons of harmful carbon emissions.

True, millions of motor cars require vast quantities of fuel, leading to an adverse effect on the quality of air. But trillions of light bulbs have enormous energy needs, too, and are therefore guilty of the same environmental ‘crime’. However, in LA and everywhere else in the world, cars typically pollute for only an hour or two each day, when they are undertaking necessary journeys. Electricity-guzzling illuminations are often left on day and night... and into the small hours, when 99 per cent of us are asleep. Because there are so many of them and they’re used so gratuitously, I’d even argue that for the vast majority of the time, humble light bulbs are more damaging to air quality than internal combustion engines. In fact, I know they are.

Mike Rutherford writes for the Times, Daily Telegraph and Independent, presents ITV’s Pulling Power and is founder of the Motorists’ Association