Defrosting the car

[DustyLee123]

It really winds me up when people leave the engine running for ages, and windscreen wipers going full pelt, instead of just defrosting the car with water/scraper and going.

The inside of my car also ices and then steams up. If I don’t run the engine, I can’t see. If I can’t see, I run the risk of killing someone. This happened a couple of years ago. The driver could see save for a rubbed patch and killed a pedestrian on a zebra crossing. Google it. It was in the news. Let us do it our ways and you do it ours.

My little 1l engine car takes an age to demist. I will scrape but on really cold days, it seems to have more ice on the wind screen inside the car than outside. the tepid water will clear the outside but the mist on the inside with the AC giving it all, it can be 10mins before I can see out to drive safely.

This.

It contributes to local pollution.

It's not all about the global picture. We can aspire to decent local air quality, even if we can't control the private jetters.

Engine running and not supervised isn’t safe

print rule - 123 of the Highway Code and attach to the idiots windscreen.

I use this for the inside. Makes a huge difference.

Depends where the car is though. The highway code doesn't apply to an individual's private driveway - there's no public access to it. If you're parked on the road or in a communal car park it would apply though.

Unless its right outside your bedroom window and waking you up in the early hours, YABU.

A bloke who used to live down the road from me used to park his bloody great van outside my house every evening (plenty of room outside his house, but I guess didn't want to wake his own kids up), come out and switch the engine on at 6am every morning to defrost, and then bugger off back to his house for half an hour with the engine left running.

Stopped doing it when I told him to park outside his own house, as it wakes my kids up every morning.

This is what I use. I keep one in the boot and one on the front seat (or door pocket). £2 each from supermarket. The first couple of times they needed changing after a month though, now it's once a year. Doesn't eliminate the damp but stops it being "drippy".

It takes 10mins or so to clear the inside of my screen with the engine running, even if i wipe it first. My windows are always soaking inside as i get in the car twice a day generally with wet feet so the damp car mats, coats and stuff in the car cause it. Takes even longer when it freezes inside too 😀

I sit in mine whilst its running on my driveway.

I have two of these which do help. Just a warning that DD got a cheaper one from Tesco and it exploded all over the front of her car whilst she was driving, she had moved it to her passenger seat, not left it on the dash with heater on.

Incidentally, how do the fans of pouring water over the screen on their drives deal with the situation where it can freeze on the pavement and leave a sheet of ice for pedestrians to negotiate ? Bearing in mind where there's blame there's a claim ....

An unattended car with the engine running is not insured in the event of a theft

I suspect they don't care about that 🙄

Won’t anyone think of the children?

You will if you tell them you were actually there scraping the car at the time the robber jumped in rather than admitting you were in the house. 😁

Well, compared to the many parents in cars who bring their kids from outside the area and drive up and down my road 2 or 3 times a day, I don't think running my engine for a few minutes will make a lot of difference......

It doesn’t go on the road that I’ve ever noticed. Certainly wouldn’t go on the pavement because I don’t park in the pavement.

Looks good, I’m going to get one. Thanks.

I clear my car windowscreen of mist on the inside and frost / ice on the outside by putting two plastic milk bottles filled with hot water on the dashboard close to the glass.
It works every time without needing to turn the car on.

I take it you missed the bit where I was addressing people who do this on their drive ... which leads over the pavement o the road

Still as long as you're OK, eh ?

The irony of not wanting to inhale de-icer fumes

Yes I did and am still missing it. Can’t see where you wrote that at all but sorry if you did. However I still stand by the fact I have never seen any water hit the ground full stop when using a jug. Not on a drive, not on a pavement, not on a road. I use a jug and there’s no water on the ground.

It runs down the windscreen and seems to sit in a “gutter” at the bottom. I guess it’s possible that minute quantities go into the engine block and drip through the engine block. But not in big enough amounts gushing off the sides of the windscreen which would be needed to cause a freezing hazard. Plus if that did happen wouldn’t it happen in the ten minutes that someone is demisting so would be on the drive not on the pavement?

anyway the pavements here aren’t gritted so are icy anyway 🤷‍♀️. I think anyone actually thinking it’s an issue is very much clutching at straws.

And I don’t know why you’re saying as long as”you’re ok”. Did you miss the bit where I said I park on the road. So I’m not even driving over a pavement so yes I am ok. As is everyone else.

Can you show where it says you can leave a car unattended with the engine running in the UK?

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/

I was unable to find it.

Having tried this.. you end up with smeary damp windscreen where visibility, while better than fully fogged up, is pretty shite.