I’ve seen over an over an “environmental” measure that causes this: disallowing cars only in central areas.

This means that people who actually need to use the car to get to work have to drive a much longer distance, only through less affluent areas, as if pollution didn’t matter over there.

I was in a situation a few years ago (not in the UK) where I had to drive to work because the only other way to get to the office/factory in time for the morning would have been to take a train the night before and camp in front of the factory. During that time there were some similar measures by the local government and I kept thinking how bonkers it was that using more fuel could be more “environmentally friendly”. It wasn’t - I was just polluting near people the government didn’t care about.