Found this in the newspaper this morning:

DID YOU KNOW?

* Vehicles that idle 10 minutes per day waste more than 29 gallons of fuel each year

* 10 seconds of idling uses more fuel than turning the engine on and off

* An idling vehicle emits 20 times more pollution than one traveling at 30 miles per hour

* Idling for more than three minutes is AGAINST THE LAW!

Excuse me while I take a minute to puke...

OK. Back now.

First of all, I will tell you that this flyer was paid for with taxpayer money. That should tell you something ... as in the government is explaining to us all how it is intruding into our lives.

Next, let's do some math. You'd think their 29 gallons a year statistic would be a huge deal, but idling your car 10 minutes a day, by THEIR estimate, works out to less than .08 gallons per 10 minutes each day. That's less than 8/100 of a gallon of gas so that you can get into a warm car or a cool one. At the current $2.75 per gallon, it comes to less than a quarter. That doesn't mean I'm going to go out and start my car 10 minutes early now. I'm just too damned lazy for that. On the other hand, these people aren't making a very good case against letting your car run for a bit while you fire up the air conditioner or run into the store for bread and milk.

And if idling 10 minutes only burns 22 cents worth of gas, why bother quoting a statistic involving 10 seconds of idling? If the state is so damned worried about my car idling for more than 10 seconds, they should have taken the money they spent on this stupid ad and invested it into some sensors for more of the traffic lights in the area. That's where my car does most of its idling - and usually for minutes at a time while I wait for no one coming the other way.

Idling cars emit 20 times more pollution than cars traveling at 30 mph? Yeah, ok. I'd love to see how they got THAT idiotic excuse for a statistic. How would they explain that a car traveling at 30 mph burns about 20 times more fuel per hour than one idling, while simultaneously producing 20 times less pollution?

Honestly, I don't give a flying fuck if idling my car for more than three minutes is against the law. That would be a bogus law anyway. What are they going to do, have some DEP beaureaucrat stand behind my car with a stopwatch and time it? These fucking idiots can't figure out a way to get Essex County to stop smelling like a giant oil refinery, and they are telling us that WE are causing problems just by letting our cars run?

Yeah ok. That makes sense ...

NOT

RWR