Back in the 1980's, my native village mounted a massive campaign to curb (no pun intended) cars idling at traffic lights. It seems incredible that we are still having to address the same issue, 40 years on.
Nowadays, many cars are fitted with an auto-stop function that cuts the engine when the vehicle is stationary; however, drivers can still choose to override this function in order to, maybe, keep warm; listen to some tunes; or out of sheer ignorance of the damage they are unwittingly causing:
Damage to humans
Exhaust fumes contain a whole gamut of harmful gases, such as the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons. These enter into our lungs and our bloodstream upon inhalation. Exhaust fumes can:
adversely affect heart function and the birth weight of babies;
aggravate asthma;
trigger allergies and breathing difficulties.
Air pollution is now classed as a group 1 carcinogen. According to the RAC, "The Royal College of Physicians estimate that 40,000 deaths a year in the UK are linked to air pollution, with engine idling as a contributing factor". In a landmark court case in 2020, a UK coroner ruled that the prevailing levels of air pollution near the South Circular Road in Lewisham, London, caused the death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah. This brings me to the next point:
Health Damage to Children
Children are more vulnerable to exhaust fumes because they inhale more air per pound of body weight and, thus, more harmful particulate matter. It therefore seems particularly insane that, outside schools across the UK, bus drivers and parents keep their engines running while waiting to pick up their children, not realising that they are creating a giant cloud of poison gas for them to breathe in as they exit the building.
Damage to Cars
Incredibly, idling is even detrimental to the engine itself. Because an idling petrol engine does not run at its ideal temperature, fuel is only partially combusted, which leads to a build-up of fuel residues on the cylinder walls. These residues are damaging to spark plugs, cylinders, and exhaust systems.
Damage to Drivers' Wallets
Idling your engine for 2 minutes uses nearly the same amount of fuel as driving a mile. If the average driver idles his or her engine between 5 and 10 minutes a day, every day, as research suggests, that's a significant expenditure on the driver's part - but at everyone's cost.
As an experiment and, because I like to practise what I pontificate about, I have started switching my engine off at every red light. It has taken me less than a week to make it a permanent habit. I breathe in less of everyone else's fumes, I relish the calm quiet of these little comfort breaks in my commute, and I feel good about polluting the planet at least a little less until I can afford an EV. Will you make the switch, and - Switch It Off?
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