Don't Idle!

There is a direct link between contaminants in vehicle emissions and significant respiratory health effects. When you choose not to idle, we can all breathe easier.

Car Emissions and Your Health

Motor vehicles generate four major pollutants: volatile organic compounds, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide.

• Volatile Organic Compounds are harmful to human health and one major chemical, benzene, is highly carcinogenic.
• Hydrocarbons react with nitrogen oxides in the presence of sunlight and elevated temperatures to form ground-level ozone. It can cause eye irritation, coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath and can lead to permanent lung damage.
• Nitrogen oxides (NOx) also contribute to the formation of ozone and contribute to the formation of acid rain and to water quality problems.
• Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless, deadly gas. It reduces the flow of oxygen in the bloodstream and can impair mental functions and visual perception. In urban areas, motor vehicles are responsible for as much as 90 percent of carbon monoxide in the air.

What You Can Do to Reduce Emissions

• The “20-second rule” - Idling for more than 20 seconds burns more gas than it takes to restart the engine. Turn off your motor if you are waiting in a parking lot, driveway, talking with a neighbor, etc. more than 20 seconds. Be aware of your idling time at Avoid excessive idling - drive-through windows, dropping children off at school, and leaving your engine running while you go inside to a store, bank, or home.
• Get going - A cold engine releases the greatest amount of tailpipe pollutants. Since a car warms up faster when it is moving, the best way to warm it up is to drive it and limit idling time. In fact, with today's engines, you need no more than 20 seconds of idling on winter days before you start to drive.

Remember: Emissions from idling vehicles are needless and can be easily prevented – all it takes is the turn of a key.

Facts About Idling

Fact: Idling for more than 10 seconds costs more than turning off your engine.

Fact: According to Auto Alliance, Ford, and AAA idling consumes more gas than driving.

Fact: New cars typically don’t require additional time to heat a "cold" engine. Vehicles produced in the mid-80’s and later have direct injection engines and do not need to be warmed up.

Fact: According to Ford, Auto Alliance, and AAA starting and restarting an engine does not place extra wear and tear on the starter/ignition set-up.

Fact: Children are particularly vulnerable to air pollution - they breathe faster than adults and inhale more air per pound of body weight. Health Fact: More than 5,000 Americans die prematurely each year because of air pollution.

Fact: A recent study in the City of Toronto found that almost half (45%) of parents idle their vehicles while waiting to pick up their children.

Fact: Service delivery vehicles spend 20-60% of their time idling, which costs fleet owners a lot of money and gets them nowhere.

Fact: If every driver in the six Western states avoided idling for five minutes per day every day of the year, we would prevent more than 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, the equivalent of removing 379,310 vehicles from the road.