If you’re not moving, shut off your car – for health’s sake

As a longtime Spokane-area resident (I flew in on the wings of a B-52 long ago), and a veteran retiree (I’ve done it more than once), I am currently serving a six-month “tour” with AmeriCorps for the Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency.

My mission is to spread a program called “No-Idle Zone” throughout the Spokane community. It specifically targets schools, but the No-Idle Zone can apply throughout our community.

Research shows that vehicle exhaust, especially when concentrated where people, particularly young people, breathe, is not good for human health. Asthma is at epidemic levels in Washington state, says the American Lung Association, afflicting 10 percent (that number is rising) of Washington’s children.

Asthma symptoms increase as a result of vehicle exhaust exposure and asthma, as the most common chronic childhood illness, is the cause of most school absences. Cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other respiratory illnesses are exacerbated by air pollution. “On road” vehicles are the largest source of air pollution in Washington, according to the Department of Ecology.

The No-Idle Zone asks us to stop idling our cars unnecessarily. The guideline is: If you’re idling for more than 30 seconds (not while in traffic), please turn your car off. Modern cars are not damaged by this off-on pattern. Today’s cars do not need a “warm-up time.” Often, more gas is burned idling than when a car is moving. It just makes sense, for our health and for your wealth, to stop unnecessary idling – in school drop-off and pick-up areas, park-and-ride lots, drive-through lines, train crossings, that “quick stop to just run in …”

You can look around and find unnecessary idling. Maybe you’re even doing it. I have talked to many people about the health impacts of unnecessary idling. The response is invariably, “Oh, I didn’t know that,” and they turn the car off.

Now that you know the impact of unnecessary idling, please feel the guilt, like I do, and turn your car off when you are in the unnecessary idling position. Let’s put the Spokane community in the healthier No-Idle Zone. If you would like to make sure your child’s school or day care, your business or even your city is a little healthier, encourage the leaders to contact me at tbrattebo@ spokanecleanair.org.