In the city of Forest Park, a suburb of Atlanta, people are getting ticketed for leaving their cars unattended as they warm up in the morning. This appears to be another one of those “for-your-protection” laws, where the people who the law is supposedly protecting are the ones who get screwed. [digg=http://www.digg.com/politics/Atlanta_suburb_gives_citations_for_unattended_idling_cars]
Forest Park police are enforcing a Georgia law that makes it illegal for someone to leave a car unattended while it is idling. Its original purpose was to prevent cars from rolling away. Today, however, Forest Park is using the law under the guise of preventing car theft. Except that the potential victim of car theft is the one who gets slapped with a $168 fine. Fourteen people have been find since January. I guess this is what happens when the police don’t have anything important to do. Of course, an infinitely better idea would be to educate citizens rather than going around enforcing more draconian laws.
Our society is moving more and more towards abrogating citizens of all responsibility of everyday decision making. The state believes that you don’t have the capacity or even the right to make choices or risks with your own personal property. And apparently the state doesn’t think people are smart enough to know that there’s a risk to leaving one’s car unattended.
I agree that the theft argument is silly, if you aren’t smart enough to think of that on your own, too bad. It seems the real problem is the pollution caused by idling cars. This is a terrible waste of gas and cause of emissions. Remote car starters have made the empty running car a common sight where I live in Central New York.
I think you hit the nail on the head, we need to educate people about the money they are wasting and the pollution they are creating.
I don’t think education will help. The government has spent who knows how much “educating” about sex, yet people are doing it younger and younger and still getting STDs. We can’t even educate people to quit smoking. We have to make it outrageously expensive with enormous taxes to get people to quit.
Regarding the theft argument: do remote starters unlock the doors? I don’t have one myself, but it would be odd if they did. If the doors stay looked, the theft argument doesn’t work.
Regarding the waste of gas: is it somehow illegitimate to warm up your car? And if not, why should it matter if you are not in the vehicle while it’s idling? The same gas will be spent either way.
My guess is this is just a revenue generator for city governments.
Wake up Matt, it is about the pollution to my mind, it is a great law and is still applicable today in respect to a car rolling away. How long do you really need to warm up a car? Two minutes I’d say was fair in Atlanta, for that short space of time you are saving and in practise probably leave running for five minutes …
As i live in an underdeveloped country in the tropics does not cross my radar. The threat of Co2 etc, etc,as the coral reefs die etc is very apparent to me and my neighbours.
“Regarding the waste of gas: is it somehow illegitimate to warm up your car? And if not, why should it matter if you are not in the vehicle while it’s idling? The same gas will be spent either way.”
If there is no need to warm up then not legitimate, you use the car to travel, therefore the consumption is based on distance traveled and not time of engine running, so no the same amount of gas will not be burnt!!
Yes it is a revenue earner and with the state of things they need to get some cash in the bank, there is a war on you know…besides anything else IT IS ILLEGAL !!! or is that insignificant, the choice to enforce it is definatly an earner !!
Pardon tone as this sort of topic gets me going to quickly….
Growing old is mandatory. Growing up? Definitely optional.
I live in Atlanta, and there are some days in winter when my entire windshield is iced over. It takes about 5 minutes before my heater is warm enough to melt the ice. While my car is warming up I’m certainly not driving anywhere.
Scrape your window and warm up for one minute. No longer.
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