People Still Idle in their Cars?

Even though New York City has had a hard time enforcing its no-idling law passed in 2009, a number of years ago I took on a personal initiative to limit idling in my car to a maximum of one or two minutes.  It is simply bad for the environment and bad for our health.  I am the first to admit that I can not do without air-conditioning in the summer - I.love.air.conditioning -  but I also don't like the idea of all the toxicity leaking out into the air in a concentrated area while I am not driving.

Mike Bloomberg recently got a lot of press when he debuted his modified home air conditioner installed in his SUV.  If I were his driver just waiting around all day for Mike to show up, I'd be pretty happy, too.

Living here in the suburbs I am reminded that I pretty much live in a bubble.  If I were living in an environmentally and health-conscious place like Portland, Austin or Boulder, surely I wouldn't be inspired to write this blog entry.  But in the suburbs, people idle.  People idle for 1 minute, for 5 minutes, for 20 minutes.  I am astounded.  Maybe people think that since there is plenty of space out of the city they can idle.  In New York City everyone is packed in like sardines so it makes sense to have a no idling law.  More likely they simply don't think at all.

So, parents waiting for your kids who are 30 minutes late from a camp trip pick up:  

Get out of your car and enjoy the outdoors!

Yesterday, even the old school classy grandpa, dressed in his golf whites, checking in with his wife via cell phone in his seasoned Philadelphia accent, managed to turn off his engine and hang out near Cricket Field for 30 minutes until the yellow school buses rolled in.

Cricket Field