Why Kids Have the Most to Lose from Our 6.6 Billion Gallon Idling Habit

Children have an enormous stake on how we manage, reduce and eventually eliminate our current 6.6 billion gallon a year idling habit. This, as we transition from our 300 Million + existing cars and trucks to full electrification of vehicles on the road. In my view, that may happen in some 20 years, if we act really fast.?

However, what’s getting lost in the EV stampede is the terrible toll that our existing idling habit is having on our air quality and our health across North America. Our children suffer the most from poor air and exhaust toxicity at an early age because their lungs aren’t yet fully developed. They are highly susceptible to automobile exhaust, a leading cause for many emergency room visits by kids.?

Often, an asthma attack is aggravated by idling exhaust outside schools, playground areas, inner city schools, and major events with slow, idling traffic. Of course, there are many more real-world scenarios of idling habits and locations but, that’s another post.

Therefore the emotional appeal of ‘our kids’ is prevalent in our idle reduction behavior modification curriculum. Driver students hear from kids directly, often looking at the camera about how they need the best air quality they can get during their school years.?

The reverse is true. As reported in the ground-breaking research by Prof. Pat Ryan and his team at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, the air quality inside and outside schools is typically the worst air quality that our children experience in their lifetimes.?

Much of this poor air quality is driven by our unconscious idling outside our kids’ schools, libraries, hospitals, and pretty much anywhere you look around. We document this in our program. This compelling information is often the first eye-opening jolt and habit-forming revelation that drivers in the US and Canada get about the idling health emergency.?

Prof. Ryan calls asthma “an epidemic” which has been hanging around (like exhaust) across North America since the 60s and the explosion of our freeways and conveniences developed around staying inside an idling motor vehicle. The results have been disastrous on lung health over the long term.

A few years ago, a peewee hockey coach lamented to me, “what are we doing to our kids? At least a dozen kids on my son’s hockey team carry asthma inhalers. 20 and 30 years ago we never used to see that. Maybe one or two puffers in a classroom. There’s something seriously wrong.”

What I’ve discovered during my 15 years in the field producing idle reduction behavior modification research and best practices, among many other things, was how passionate fathers and grandfathers become, particularly those who treasure their vehicles and might be called ‘car guys’ and have school aged kids.?

And of course, ‘clean air moms’ are very passionate when they fully understand the scope of the problem. Often, they are like I used to be, heavy, unconscious idlers with kids in the vehicle, not thinking about it and convinced that idling does no harm and afterall, “idling is no big deal.”???

However, I cannot think of a better example of how life-changing ‘our kids’ can be in engaging grown-ups on our idle reduction movement than Al MacPhee, one of the top car executives in North America well known to GM as well as Ford.?

When Al found out about what his grandkids were breathing at their elementary school and how big the idling problem was, he flipped. ‘Carbon footprint’ and ‘air quality’ are regular phrases in Al’s vocabulary today.?

“’Holy cow. We know this stuff. We’re automobile experts and need to be educating our customers on how to best use their vehicle. That means shutting the engine off when it’s in park as often as possible. Idling when parked is one of the worst operating conditions for a vehicle built today,” Al says.

Mr. MacPhee has been the honorary chair and active with our affiliated registered charity in Canada, The Children’s Clean Air Network for 10 years now. Meanwhile, the cause that was launched by elementary school kids in 2006, IDLE FREE for our kids, has now evolved into industry's idle reduction behavior modification, certification, and branding solution for fleet operators, IDLE FREE for our kids? for Fleets.?

The mission is still the same, ‘To reduce greenhouse gas and improve air quality by reducing vehicle emissions.’ And, ‘our kids’ are still at the centre of the movement. As well they should be. Afterall, who has the most to lose from poor air quality and climate change??

What do you think? Leave your comments as part of our ‘IDLE FREE Feedback Loop’.

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IDLE FREE for our kids? Behavior Modification. Certification. Branding.

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