Turn It Off.
Is there no end to local authority crackpot ideas to soak the poor old motorist?
This latest idea as a sop to ‘Global Warming’ is to fine motorists if they are stationary with the engine running.
It obviously makes economic sense to turn the engine off when parked but not at traffic lights or if the stream of traffic is stopped for some reason, which is what the proposal is focussing on. What about buses stopped at bus stops? Fire engines attending an incident?
Once again some bright spark has come up with an idea and not thought it through.
Even on modern cars, starting an engine takes a lot out of a battery and it can take several miles of constant motion to put back what has been taken out. So crossing a city can end up with a flat battery and then your car won’t start at all and will hold up the traffic behind you. And if the car is an automatic you can’t even bump start it. The best that you can hope is if someone has some jump leads, but then they would need to run their engine whilst trying to start yours if they don’t want a flat battery. Plus there is the extra wear and tear on the starter motor.
|