By Patricia Houser
For Nature’s Sake
Patricia Houser
In the spirit of back-to-school season, you are invited to try out the following quiz about car idling, based on information from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the US Environmental Protection Agency.
For clarification, “idling” refers to situations in which a vehicle’s engine is running while the vehicle is stopped.
- True or False: 10 seconds of idling uses more fuel than turning off the engine and restarting it.
- True or False: Restarting a car many times, rather than letting it idle, is hard on the starter and other parts.
- True or False: Every gallon of gas burned produces more than 20 pounds of greenhouse gases.
- True or False: Emissions are still present and harmful even when you can’t see the exhaust.
- True or False: An idling vehicle emits 20 times more pollution than one traveling at 30 miles per hour.
- True or False: In the State of Connecticut, it is illegal to idle your car for more than one minute.
The answer to the first statement is “true.” Also, because turning off the engine saves gas, it also saves money. Those who reduce their idling for even a few minutes each day can save several dollars per week, according to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. That economic savings, along with concern over carbon emissions, is why companies like UPS as well as government agencies, including the DEEP, have installed monitors on their fleets of vehicles that hold the driver accountable for idling time.
The answer to the second statement is “false.” According to numerous government agencies and commercial auto service sites, idling is harder on the engine than restarting. It’s also a common myth that engines must still warm up in winter before driving away. Any car produced since early 1990s, according to the Carfax.com (a company that buys and sells cars) blog, is equipped with electronic fuel injection, and auto experts have explained that cars with electronic fuel injection don’t need more than 30 seconds of idling on a cold day. The EPA and Department of Energy say that, for modern cars, the engine will warm up faster when being driven.
Statements three, four and five are all “true” and can be found on the DEEP website. The emissions harms referred to the fourth statement come from the main pollutants in car and truck exhaust, which have been linked to problems with asthma, decreased lung function, cardiac disease and cancer.
The sixth statment is “false.” While Connecticut does have a law against idling, the limit is three minutes, not one minute. The law also has a list of exceptions, including an allowance for cars to idle for more than three minutes when the temperature is below 20 degrees Fahrenheit or when the vehicle is sitting in traffic.
It’s clear, then, that idling is bad for human and environmental health. It’s bad for our cars and a waste of gas. It’s also illegal in Connecticut. Why, then, is it still so common? Not a week goes by without most of us in New Haven County seeing an example – someone sitting with the air conditioning on (or heat, depending on the season) with the engine running for 10 minutes or more, scrolling through their phone or listening to the radio, waiting in a line for take-out food or coffee, dropping off passengers or admiring the sunset at Gulf Beach.
Perhaps the reason that Connecticut residents still idle is not so much a matter of callous indifference to human health or planetary self-loathing as it is a lack of awareness of what happens when we let the engine run.
With that in mind, the DEEP has emphasized outreach and education to reduce idling. Its website is full of resources and engaging materials, like the informative video called “Wastebusters – Idling Myths,” an inspired parody of the Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters series. (Special thanks to Ric Pirolli, director of air enforcement at DEEP, for background information on this issue.)
In 2020 the organization LiveGreen Connecticut ran an idle reduction campaign in Fairfield County with a goal of having at least one “no idling” sign in every town of the county. Today 14 of 23 towns in Fairfield County have idling prohibition signs provided by DEEP, with some towns, like Greenwich, requesting as many as 34 signs.
Meanwhile, in early 2021 state Sen. Will Haskell introduced a bill co-sponsored by state Rep. David Michel to allow local enforcement of the state’s idling regulation, but the bill didn’t make it out of committee before the legislative session ended.
That leaves it to residents of Milford and Orange concerned about this utterly avoidable source of carbon emissions and pollution to take it upon themselves to order a no-idle sign for their school or retail area or scenic overlook – and, above all, to not be idle.
Patricia Houser, PhD, AICP, shares her exploration of local and regional environmental issues in this column as a member of the nonpartisan Milford Environmental Concerns Coalition.