Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Trying to get a handle on idling
From CBS:
Leaving a car idling is annoying, smells bad, and at the end of the day is hazardous to your health.
The law is already pretty clear.
“You can’t idle for more than three minutes anywhere in the city and if you’re in front of a school you can’t idle for more than one minute,” [Council Member Helen] Rosenthal explained.
She is proposing a new program to train citizens to spot illegal idlers.
“You can see if the car behind me is idling all you would need to do is videotape the license plate, and then load it onto a website at DEP and then DEP would issue a summons,” she said.
The program would require citizens to attend special training. An initial offense would result in a warning, next come a summons and a $350 fine.
The person reporting the violator could earn up to 50 percent of the money once it’s collected by the city.
27 comments:
Does this cover trucks?
Bringing the worst aspects of East Germany and the Soviet Union to New York - every neighbor has a financial incentive to spy on you and report you to "the authorities".
This is an outrage! It's my car! I will idle as much as I want! The hell with your breathing.
Wow. That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. So you have to film the car for 3 minutes. Sure sounds like a citizen assisted police state.
Can I video tape for 3 minutes any parked Mr. Softee ice cream truck with its annoying jingle blaring against the current law?
(Comes DST and they're out already. Heard one yesterday on Broadway in Elmhurst.)
That's was this city needs..Neighborhood vigilantes
When the politicians and the other civil servants (Police, Fire Dept, city and state employees) follow this law then they should enforce it. Until then they are not really serious about it.
I remember when it was new someone commenting on Bloomberg's police detail one summer day idling for over an hour. The Nanny Mayor brushed that under the rug.
Another example of laws for the peons, not for the elite.
Yes, let breed a culture of ratting out your neighbor.
Soon enough you'll be rewarded for ratting out you neighbor for voicing unfarorable opinions of the city council.
So you turn in an idler...so what? Where is the cop to ticket him? Send in your cell phone video, complete with his plate number, then what? Do you have to appear in court? Great, an angered perp now has a beef with you.
Well, in order to record someone idling, wouldn't you need to put your car in park (idle). If you don't that means you would be using an electronic device while operating a vehicle.
You can also take pic/vid as your walking by, but I'm sure the driver may start chasing that person.
Never pass. Private citizens reporting others? Where can that go wrong?
Will this idling law. cover ambulances and amubulettes. If it does then I'm in. Why is it necessary for ambulances to idol for 30 and more minutes while the attendants are away from the ambulance dealing with their emergency?
I guess none of you ever heard of Block Watchers and probably would just walk by someone being mugged or raped. God forbid you get involved. Just like Kitty Genevese - no one cold even pick up the phone.
This is a pretty dumb resolution. I am sure the people that bring forth this legislation are idlers themselves. It is impossible not to idle at some point in NYC due to the congestion and parking limitations. I understand the health and environmental aspect, but lately the city has been enacting numerous methods to make money. Why not just make the rich pay the same tax bracket as us instead. Regardless, I think the correct approach would be to empower the people to stand up for what is right and politely ask the driver to quit idling rather than take a video and post it up online.
Tell it to the DEP truck that idled in front of my house for a couple of hours last week. The DEP workers were sitting in the truck the whole time, keeping the engine idling to stay warm, I assume.
The taxpayers already pay for civil servants to do this job. They are called DEP inspectors.
'Anonymous said...
I guess none of you ever heard of Block Watchers and probably would just walk by someone being mugged or raped. God forbid you get involved. Just like Kitty Genevese - no one cold even pick up the phone.'
Idling is now the equivalent to rape and murder?
Get a grip you moron.
Anonymous said...
"Idling is now the equivalent to rape and murder?"
The fumes from idling cars and trucks can kill you or make you very sick and shorten your life.
I think you need to get a grip on the facts of related illness from fumes not to mention all the greenhouse emissions being release.
I have nicely asked quie a number of drivers PLEASE do idle and have received nothing but negitive answers such as I need to play the radio.
The other blogger - Carbon Monoxide is a slow killer.
Want to earn a fortune. Hang out with your video camera in front of PS 162 in Bayside. The parents arrive an hour before school gets out and sit in the car with the engine idling the whole time. I doubt they care about any laws since they can't even bother to find a legal parking space, just stop in the middle of the street or somebody's driveway. Can't have those precious kids walking or getting cold.
We don't need a new law. We need enforcement of the laws that already exist. Nobody should be allowed to sit in a running car for over an hour, anywhere, school location or not.
There is a term for people who do this
stukach
Carbon Monoxide is only a killer in a closed environment. That is why people in garages or homes die, not people who walk by an idling car. If you are trying to kill yourself with your car exhaust you need a hose from the tailpipe.
Idling cars outside in public pose zero carbon monoxide risk.
Fumes from cars in public have negligible risk to average people. People with copd or emphysema on oxygen have a small risk in a closed space. My advice, don't stand around an idling car.
Second hand smoke has been debunked as a cause of cancer. It does increase visits to the ED in kids with asthma whose parents smoke. Not a risk with car idling.
Greenhouse gasses? That also is debunked. There is no credible evidence to support global warming. It was faked (East Anglia University 'hockey stick' was faked). Can anyone really believe there is still global warming after last summer, the coldest in memory. This winter the coldest in years? "Global Warming" can't be the result in all of this. It hasn't been warming in almost 20 years.
We can't compromise our future with restrictions based on predictions, all computer models, that have no evidence in the real world.
The green alarmists have no problem with us paying $5 per gallon for gas. They have no problem with brown outs due to lack of energy.
There has to be some rational thought into this.
I am against pollution. I don't think cars should idle. I just don't agree with inflammatory nonsense that somehow a car idling will result in someone's death.
That is ignorance at its worst.
Equating an infamous rape/murder with someone idling there car is just plain ridiculous to any reasonably intelligent person.
Statistics for Carbon Monoxide deaths is the US 1999-2011:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6303a6.htm
About 430/yr, non fire related, That leaves accidental and suicide. They don't have an idling car category.
Carbon Monoxide a slow killer? It usually kills quickly in the right setting.
Idling cars are no risk for carbon monoxide. Period.
More Kitty Genovese mythology:
1. No person was a witness to the final, fatal attack. The person who discovered the dying victim wasted some time but did call the police.
2. People did call the police earlier reported screaming but the police decided not to respond based on that report.
Read Debunking the myth of Kitty Genovese It was a story too good to check.
If the ideling perp is illegal can you still report them?
I did not mean instant death. I meant adding to polution and shorting your life.
Can you imagine the amount of stolen and broken phones! The amount of people getting punched/ stabbed/ shot! Oh yeah,that's a great ide. How about maintaining the million trees that were/ are planted instead of letting them die?!?!?
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