To ask parents to switch off car engines?

[TheWK]

When I drop off or pick up the kids at school, I see lots of parents sitting in their cars with the engine on, churning out fumes into the school car park.

It seems to get worse in the summer when it is hot, and people want air conditioning on, and that seems to set off a chain reaction as people then shut their windows and do the same.

There is one particular parent who appears to have a conference call in her car for an hour at 8.30 each day, and sits with her engine on churning out particularly noxious diesel fumes

I really don’t want to be a busybody and potentially have a fallout with fellow parents, but I hate having to walk the children through the fumes, which really can’t be good for anyone’s health or local air quality

Would I be unreasonable to ask them to stop?

Any advice on how to approach this diplomatically?

I bet lots of these parents could just walk anyway!!

@illustriouslyillogical

“Are all these cars Diesel then? I missed that!”

No they are a mix of petrol and diesel cars

I mentioned diesel as there is a particularly noxious really old diesel Land Rover Discovery that really pumps out the fumes.

And Diesel engines are much worse for particulates, the tiny particles that are really bad for young lungs...hence all the talk about banning older Diesel engines from cities

Ita a pet hate of mine. I remember watching a documentary about this earlier in the year, and I'm sure it said that actually the drivers in the car are also being subject to the poisinous fumes, and are actually more exposed than the pedeatrians. So food for thought for the lady that runs her car engine whilst her toddler sleeps maybe.

• pedestrians

Yes how dare we worry about the environment as long as a toddler naps for longer

@CatsCatsCats11

“Sorry I do this .... it keeps my toddler asleep, if I turn the engine off she wakes every time sad”

Thanks for being honest. I remember those days taking mine out on car trips at 3am in a desperate bid to settle them

I’ve just been doing a bit research on this and apparently the air quality inside an idling car is 9 times worse than immediately outside, so it’s really really bad for you and your DC.

I say that not to try to win a point but because I thought you should be aware (I didn’t know an hour or so ago either).

If all you parents walked your bloody kids to school think how good that'd be for the environment.

And think how the obesity levels would go down too!!

Win Win....

@ilustrousllyillogical

True, but it’s obviously not practical for everyone. Our school is about 3 miles away and involves crossing an A road

@illustriouslyillogical, the school is close to four miles away, and only .25 mile strip of road has walkways along the road.

So I'll continue driving my bloody child to school, but thanks for your suggestion.

Our school is 11 miles away, more miles if we were to walk because we couldn’t walk the same route. I’m really not up to 44 miles a day. Sorry and all that.

🙄

I have to drive to the bus stops but damn straight I wouldn't leave my engine running.

I hate it. Rarely is the turnaround so quick it justifies it.

I live on a road with a two form entry school, the "last distance" for children is 0.2 miles but yes it still is full of cars. I am that person, I knock on their window if I have time and ask them to turn their engines off. The school even has "no idling" signs but these people barely get out of their cars to drop off their children so don't probably read them. Most people comply when I have asked (naicely). Just say air pollution harms children's growing lungs and they can't really complain. The worst response I had was "No. Mind your own business!"... oh the irony. I wish his behaviour had no impact on my life but the sum total of all the idlers has an impact. There's campaigns & organisations that can help, I think you can borrow tabards and get leaflets to give to drivers so they know the impact. So... Do it, ask people to turn their engines off, there's too much at stake for us to sit by and do nothing. It literally prevents children from growing healthy lungs being subjected to this on a daily basis.

Thanks MrsJamin

The more I read, the more concerned I get about the health aspects of idling

It seems so preventable with a bit of education.

Have you found any decent resources (flyers/ posters etc)?

I almost posted this same thing the other day. Hate people just sitting idling, filling the air with pollution. No wonder the planet's fucked

Totally agree that most could walk, some say a 20 minute walk is too far in the rain

Btw let’s not get on topic and get onto the walk to school instead of driving debate. There’s lots of other discussions on that here

Of course you can ask. But these will be the same selfish fuckers who park awkwardly in my street so I can't get my car out in order to be as close to school as possible. Their precious little pickles couldn't possibly walk the 2 minutes from a car park.

So ask by all means. They won't comply for long because they just don't give a shit.

**off topic, I meant

You could also speak to the Council and ask if they can send a traffic warden round that way once in a while. As a pp mentioned, idling is technically against the law. You can be fined if you don't turn the engine off when asked by someone with authority to enforce the law.

I can understand that some posters live a few miles from their child's primary school, but certainly in urban areas, where the vehicle pollution is far more likely to be an issue, the catchment areas are smaller year on year: 600 -800m is commonplace around here.

On that basis, the vast majority ought to be able to walk. But as a nation we are growing lazy. This was evidenced at a gym I used to go to. It had a massive car park, but was plagued by members insisting on parking on the double-yellow lines in the vicinity surrounding the main entrance. What logic! Going to the gym to "get fit" but unwilling to walk more than a couple of yards to the entrance! The management had to resort to placing heavy-duty stickers on offenders windscreens (really difficult to remove).

People are, on balance from what I can see, lazy.

I would either contact the school and get them to send out a message about it. If they wont then contact they local PSCO’s - they’ll have a field day because, apart from being terrible environmentally and health-wise........its against the law!!!

God I hate this, I live near a school and sometime those big wagons park up on the street in front of my house and it sounds like an airplane taking off. The noise reverberates through the house. I think people must be incredibly naive to not realise how much they affect the people who live in on-street houses. It’s incredibly selfish.

contact the school and get them to send out a message about it.

Our school does this ALL the time. Please park considerately. Do not stop on the yellow lines. Use the car park. Do not inconvenience local residents.

Behaviour improves for a day. Then it's back to normal, and even worse on a day when it's raining. Many of the offending drivers could walk -two in particular I can think of would take less than 10 minutes to walk to school. But they choose to drive / park / idle because they are lazy and don't give a shit.

@jesusinacabbsge van

“You could also speak to the Council and ask if they can send a traffic warden round that way once in a while. As a pp mentioned, idling is technically against the law. You can be fined if you don't turn the engine off when asked by someone with authority to enforce the law.”

I think you’re tight that it’s illegal, but I think that education and communication would be much more effective

Apart from the real CFers, I think that most people are just oblivious to the impact on others, and themselves