Turn off that engine!

I'm amazed at what I see on my morning walks around the neighborhood. I'm amazed at how many times I see someone in a car waiting to pick someone up just sitting there with the engine going. Or, I see a mother with the SUV going, getting her toddler out of the car seat to take into the baby sitter. Or, sometimes it seems that the person is just warming up the car. He's out tending to the windows, and there the car or truck -- and more often than not the SUV is idling away, exhaust spewing out the back. Why? It's surely not because it's cold -- this is Santa Barbara after all. At $4.00 plus a gallon, that's a lot of dough down the drain.
This morning I read a short essay in Slate that speaks to this very situation. It asks the question of if it's more efficient to leave the car running than turn it off? Too many of us started driving in the dark old days of the carburetor, when every time you turned on the car a lot of gas got used. With fuel injectors, that's no longer true. In the article the suggestion is that we abide the 10 Second rule. If you're stopped for more than 10 seconds, turn it off. You'll save gas, money, and the environment, at minimal cost to the car's electrical system. And, of course, if all cars could adapt the Prius model -- the Prius automatically shuts off the engine -- we could save large amounts of gas. The article suggests saving 10% of our consumption -- just in idling in stop and go traffic.
Just something to think about. And check out the entire article here.

Comments

Popular Posts