May 6 was World Asthma Day. Since car exhaust can lead to asthma as well as global warming, we thought it would be a good day to highlight the importance of not idling your car or truck engine.

What makes idling especially bad for health is that drivers tend to idle in gathering places - by sidewalks, schools, playgrounds, homes, and offices. Breathing in pollution close to the source is more dangerous than farther away.

Take a look at the evidence.

Tailpipe Exhaust May Cause Asthma

Tailpipe exhaust from both gasoline- and diesel-burning vehicles contains the pollutants that produce ozone when combined with sunlight and heat. Ozone occurs mostly during the summer months. A warming planet means more hot days, and thus more ozone.

Breathing in ozone irritates and inflames your lungs, and repeated exposure can reduce lung function. There’s a lot of evidence that ozone makes asthma worse. But the Children’s Health Study in California found evidence that ozone causes asthma. The study also found that children can suffer irreversible lung damage as adults from breathing smog.

On top of that, diesel exhaust contains particulate matter (soot). This has long been known to cause a variety of health problems, including aggravated asthma (see CARB report on health effects [PDF]). But as with ozone, there is evidence that diesel exhaust particles may cause asthma, and not just worsen it.

California kids aren’t the only ones to suffer from tailpipe-induced asthma. A 2005 NYU Medical Center study showed that asthma symptoms among children in the South Bronx doubled on high traffic days.

Conversely, reducing ozone can improve asthma rates. During the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the city closed downtown to private cars for 17 days. During this time, daily peak ozone levels dropped more than a quarter and hospitalizations for asthma fell by almost one-fifth.

Fight Global Warming, Save Money

There’s no reason to idle your vehicle engine. As I explained my previous post:

• Today’s engines don’t need a warm-up period.
• If you’re stopped for more than 10 seconds, it uses more gasoline to idle than to restart.

Many cities, including New York, have laws against idling, but they’re rarely enforced. We need better enforcement, but we can make a difference with our own actions and behavior.

So in honor of World Asthma Day, switch off that idling engine. You’ll curb global warming pollution, save money on gasoline, and help everyone to breathe better.

Fact: Idling for more than 10 seconds damages the engine, emits more air pollution, and of course costs more money in the long run than turning the car off and back on again. This is true for all cars built since the 1970s with a catalytic converter.

And yet…

Idling in the developing world

Oddly enough, in the “developing” world, idling your car is not only accepted, it’s a national pastime.

Here in South Korea, a country where oil is at a premium for lack of any domestic reserves, the belief seems to be, “an idle car is a happy car.” Men, especially, have a love affair with the idle car. Perhaps it says, “Hey, ladies… I have money to burn.” Perhaps it’s just a lack of knowledge about car maintenance and air pollution; perhaps it’s a lack of concern.

The problem of idling is even more severe in countries where oil is not at a premium. On my last visit to Venezuela, I spoke with a man named Pedro, who drives charter mini-buses for a living. I asked him why he idles his mini-buses for hours instead of turning off the engine. He smiled proudly. Why shouldn’t he idle his mini-buses? After all, in Venezuela, petrol is cheaper than water.

So here again, idling is a sign of wealth. It’s a case of “waste to show you want not.”

Legal penalties for idling

You may not know it, but your city, county, state, or province may be one of the many with a fine for idling a car.

In the county of Denver, Colorado, idling a car for 10 minutes could land you a fine of no less than $999 and/or imprisonment for one year. A similar penalty of one grand and a year in the slammer applies to anyone in the county of St. Louis, Missouri for idling a car for just 3 minutes. See a list of idling laws in the United States here.

In Canada, of course, fines are less draconian. Idle a car for 3 minutes in Surrey, a city within the Metro Vancouver area in British Columbia, and you’ll get “dinged” $50.

Were these laws news to you? That’s because there’s clearly a disconnect between the laws and their enforcement. Start arresting St. Louis residents for idling and you’ll have a lot of ticked off Missourians. And who really wants a lot of ticked off Missourians?

The answer, as always, is better education about the true costs of idling.

Resources:

Green automotive reading: Gas 2.0

Idling Myths and Facts | Lowering Emissions and Particulates

Turn Off Your Engine! | Environmental Defense Fund

2008 Idle Laws by State | Scribd