Reader comments
No-idling zone: Schools urge drivers to cut pollution by turning off buses, cars

This is completely bogus. Most people do not idle in front of the school for more than 10 or 15 minutes...but the fact is, that you will waste more fuel by starting and stopping your engine and starting it again.

Just another example of government officials getting in the way of freedom and progress.

Actually, after 30 seconds of idling, you save fuel by turning off your car. What I really don't understand is why the drivers have to be "trained" in a "pilot program." How hard is it to turn the key?

As a school teacher, I know that the buses idle and the pollution is horrible. It makes me physically ill, and they waste a lot of fuel.

Back a few years ago, our school stopped bus service from our neighborhood because they decided we were less than two miles FROM THE BaCK BORDER of the school. But it ends up being more than two miles of walking to actually get into any building. as a result, about 50 cars come out of our neighborhood (even counting carpooling). I and others called the district office many times to complain about this decision and the variety of sure-to-happen consequences, one of which was pollution from the additional vehicles. Now it's like no one had ever thought of this! We'd even told district officials that parents would be willing to pay a little extra to help keep buses running in our area, but of course that suggestion was rejected without comment.

It is nice to know that someone else cares about toxic waste besides myself.

If we assume that the science is correct that idling more than 30 seconds causes more damage than turning off the car and restarting it...imagine how much gas we waste and pollution we create by having stop lights that are not coordinated to facilitate. Smooth flowing traffic doesn't just save the earth, but also time and energy. This is a good start. Now imagine how pollution is caused by idling at traffic lights that could easily be adjusted to intelligently increase the flow of cars rather than just constantly going green, yellow, red.

Nice start. But how about all the idling at drive up windows. Maybe we could consider a no drive up window policy between the hours of ten and four. That way those rushing to work and home from work could still have the convenience, but we wouldn't have non-stop idling.

Another poorly disguised effort by the makers of starters and batteries.
Starters and Batteries are made to last for a certain number of cycles. Gee, if we can get people to use the starters and batteries twice as much, they will last half as long, and we will double our sales!
Especially for diesel buses, starters and batteries cost mega-bucks (several hundred dollars each) so if they last half as long----yea, we save on maintenance costs----