To tell the woman in the car in front to turn her engine off?

[Niceshotdoc]

Sat in the car waiting for DS. Residential street. Woman in front has been idling her car for the past 10 minutes. Presumably for the air con. We're right next to peoples gardens. I really want her to turn it off. So selfish. Shall I?

Back in ye olden dayes that might have been a reason.

Nowadays with modern reliable cars, not so much!

At least this will all go away once we're all driving hybrid or electric cars and the engine stays off while you listen to music or have the aircon on.

When we lived in Germany there was a time beyond which it was illegal to leave a car idling, it was a long time ago and maybe with air con it's no longer the same.

OP you win the virtue signalling award of the day. The school should make you prefect.

It's always illegal to idle your car in the UK. People just dont give a shit.

i genuinely don’t understand this. Why would someone telling you to stop doing something make you do it longer? It’s weird and needlessly confrontational. Why wouldn’t you just consider whether they were making a decent point and, if they are, go along with it? I wouldn’t necessarily do what I was told, but I would consider it just in case I was being thoughtless.
Your attitude is like that of a toddler or a stroppy teen.

Because she's mischievous, that's what it is. You take her parking spot by accident, she will scratch your car in revenge. This sort of people.

I did not realise it was illegal! I know it’s bad for the environment but I will confess to sitting in an idling car outside various places when my baby falls asleep in the back. He’s a chronic non-sleeper and if I switch the engine off he’ll wake and be generally awful. I’m exhausted. I’m not sure how I’d respond if someone asked me to switch it off, but them knocking on the window would also wake him!

I’d never leave it running purely for air con, although having sat in a lot of traffic jams recently no one was turning off their engine. It didn’t occur to me to switch off.

I don’t get why people are being so nasty OP it’s like they’re so ignorant they don’t give a fuck about their health or anyone else’s.
Hopefully you making this thread has made some people realise that doing this is a bad idea.
I wouldn’t say anything though, people are crazy.

I wouldn’t say anything because inconsiderate arseholes don’t tend to react well but I fully share your irritation with people who leave their care idling.

Maybe she has MS and cannot overheat. In the scheme of things this is tiny. Mind your own businesses.

If you were feeding your baby from a "baby food jar" and a young woman came up and said "stop and check the date - those have all been recalled because glass was found in a batch" would you stop, or would you crack on to spite her?

Do you see a link between the planet going to shit and selfish people deliberately choosing to do harmful things because they would rather make things worse for everyone than to listen to others?

The in-car air quality is pretty poor when you are idling, worse than when you are diving apparently. So these people are exposing themselves and their children to unnecessary particulate matter too.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5923653/

My god this is classic Mumsnet.

so a person who ostensibly is most likely being selfish on a hot day, is instead being exonerated by this MNetter who claims “she could have MS”.

I mean, this is peak whatabouttery.

it reminds me of the classic P&C spaces threads where loads pile on to say “but what about a hidden disability?”

Many British people just hate having to think of others, but also hate being thought of as being thoughtless

So some tie themselves in knots to find justifications to discredit the position of being neighbourly and inclusive

Also “mind your own businesses” - is she Lord Sugar or a conglomerate?

I wish everybody who notices this would say something. It is your business - it is the air you are breathing. Where we live, people will park on double yellow lines, on a t-junction, creating a hazard for everyone but especially small children, AND have their car idling. That level of selfish is being passed on to their kids and it makes me despair.

😂

I've sat parked behind one of these arrogant assholes. Clearly idling so they can use aircon. Well - I couldn't even sit with my windows down because they filled the air outside with fumes. I had to sit in a baking hot car with the windows up.

Polluting, selfish, arrogant and stupid. But try to call one out and you'll probably get told to fuck off.

You can get fined if you are parked and keep the engine on.

I prob wouldn’t say anything but this annoys me. It’s rude.

The air your baby is breathing while you sit in an idling car is really bad quality.

Turn the engine off.

God, what a depressing thread. There’s a climate crisis and I assume most of us here have children who will live to deal with the consequences. Plus air in cities (breathed by all city dwellers including kids) is dirty and bad for your health. Switch your engines off when you’re stationary fgs.

Whenever people feel judged about their environmental impact - even when it's someone else bring the judgee - it turns them into foot stamping contrary teenagers.

Of course air quality is everyone's business!

Is this what you're teaching your children? Blatant disregard for the law and throw your toys out of the pram when someone points it out?

I hate people who do this. Drives me mad. And I don't understand why people do it, unless perhaps weather conditions are fairly extreme.

Well I didn't tell her to turn her car engine off - I'm not sure it would have solved anything, for many of the reasons set out in this thread. Makes me a bit sad though, the idea that someone might have been sitting out in their garden on the other side of the fence, also not feeling like they could say something. Some of the houses had their back doors open.

Am I perfect? No. Am I sometimes thoughtless? Yes sure. Does that make this behaviour any less thoughtless and selfish? No.

I wish this conclusion was written in a more readable way - I'd be tempted to post it on the windscreens of idlers...