Find out how much you know about idling myths and facts by taking the Tender Tailpipe Test at Idle Free Oakland.
Tender Tailpipe or Tend Your Tailpipe? Doesn’t matter, just get the facts straight. The test will take you thirty seconds, and then you can decide whether or not to kick the idling habit. The one-minute Pause & Park-it Pledge will ground your new knowledge in action that will make a difference!
Then make the Pause & Park-it Pledge, using what you have learned to create a cleaner, greener city, and to drive leaner, too. An important part of this pledge is asking two friends to pledge with you.
Fortunately this Engineering guy explains it sufficiently, with science and math and everything…. just stop idling, y’all!
PLEASE SHARE!
In construction bids, nobody likes to leave money on the table. Yet the biggest controllable expense—fuel cost—is rarely scrutinized for savings.
That’s unfortunate, given that the average idle time for heavy equipment is 40 percent, says Komatsu’s Ken Calvert.Komatsu started putting telematics on its machines in 2006. When they looked at the aggregate data two years later they were shocked to see how often machines idled.
And that 40 percent doesn’t just mean wasted fuel, Calvert says. It also adds non-productive hours to the machine, lowers the resale value, shortens your warranty coverage, accelerates engine wear and causes you to schedule PMs when you really don’t need them.
Additionally, in many Tier 4 Interim and Tier 4 Final engines, excess idle also causes soot to build up faster in the diesel particulate filter, requiring more frequent regenerations and service.“That’s pretty expensive behavior,” Calvert says. “If you can limit the unnecessary part of the idle time, you’re going to save some money.”
Read more at: How to save money and protect equipment by creating an anti-idling policy at your construction company
How kids are thinking about global warming… they need help from grownups!
A cute 15 second video about the 10-second rule but this slogan doesn’t really work if you think about it too hard!
From Help the Air KAIRE in Kentucky.
Here’s a great video from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources:
The Cadettes of Girl Scout Troop 31339 have created a movie about idling! They say,
“It’s only two minutes long, but it might save the world — or at least our atmosphere! It’s about reducing emissions and waste with a simple turn of the car key. We chose this project because we care about the air, and we’ve noticed a lot of idling cars out there in our community (maybe even right now, at the carpool circle!). Please watch our movie, and join us in being ‘Idle-Free!'”
We would love to see more Scout troops add their own message!
Linda Gaines, a Systems Analyst in the Center for Transportation Research at Argonne National Lab, studies vehicle idling. We’re all familiar with idling—sitting at traffic lights, waiting in a running car to pick someone up, watching trucks idle while their drivers make deliveries.
Cumulatively, the impact of vehicle idling is huge. In the U.S. alone, idling uses more than 6 billion gallons of fuel each year.
In one study, Linda’s research team addressed a common dilemma faced by fast-food customers—do you use less fuel to drive-thru, or to park, go inside the restaurant, and then restart the car? The answer: idling for longer than 10 seconds consumes more fuel and produces more global warming pollution than stopping and restarting, so you’re better off going inside the restaurant.
Linda’s team turns their findings into practical tools to help drivers reduce their idling, and even created an online IdleBox toolkit in partnership with the Department of Energy’s Clean Cities Program.
Given the amount of oil wasted by idling vehicles each year, Linda’s work is making important progress towards improving vehicle fuel efficiency—a key piece of the UCS Half the Oil plan.
See why people in “a cleaner Connecticut” do it!
Canada gets it… why can’t we?
I just heard a report from a friend returning from China that traffic lights signal before the light turns green… so that drivers can re-start their engines and prepare to move.
An article from the South China Morning Post discusses the benefits of switching engines off while waiting for a light to change.
What I found most interesting was this sentence:
A Friends of the Earth survey has found that, although less than half of the drivers polled always switched off their engines when waiting, more than 60 per cent of the drivers who left their motor running said they would be willing to switch off regularly on realising this action helps the environment.
Less than half of drivers switched off their engines already? What a huge number! Here in Oakland it would be less than one percent! Apparently, even the most mainstream Chinese drivers are already doing better than we are in terms of ending the harmful practice of unnecessary idling.
EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS!
Idle Free Oakland 