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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 03:34 
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BBC News wrote:
'Idling' motorists in Westminster to face £20 fines
23 March 2015 Last updated at 00:34

A view over London on 19 March, 2015 The council said local residents are concerned about the air quality in Westminster

Motorists in Westminster who sit in a stationary car with the engine running and refuse to turn it off are to be fined £20.

The move reflects concerns from local residents and businesses about air quality, Westminster City Council said.

A team of traffic marshals will patrol the borough and ask car owners with stationary vehicles to switch off their engines, the council said.

The penalties will come into force on 1 May, as a "last resort".

The new policy follows Camden Council's fines for buses which idle for too long, introduced in 2011.

Neil Greig, director of policy and research at the Institute of Advanced Motorists, said the "key issue" would be how the marshals enforced the fines.

He said: "If they target private car drivers pulling up for a moment in relatively clean, modern cars in a draconian way - whilst ignoring old buses, coaches, large trucks, utility company vans or taxis idling for long periods - then it will quickly be seen as yet another revenue-raising exercise."
Exhaust of stationary car in London Patrolling traffic marshals will ask drivers to turn off their engines

So when you are in your car warming it up and keeping the ice off the screen, not to say keep yourself warm too, you will have to turn it off and freeze in case you receive a fine! They haven't thought this one through have they!? :(
If they want a no vehicle access and completely destroy the center of London they are going the right way about it. So short sighted and so incredibly silly. Won't the very act of turning a vehicle's engine on & off 100 times cause more pollutants than if left running? And if the report is about buses then why start to focus / enforce against cars/vans?

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 21:50 
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Additional point on cold engines . Commercial vehicles are on the whole diesel powered. So the driver has spent time getting & keeping the windscreen /side windows clear of frost and getting the engine warm to keep the windows clear. It's hard enough to keep a diesel engine warm in cold weather when idling as they only get hot when working. Switch it off for any length of time and it takes another age to get it hot . there goes the clear windows/ road safety and increase in pollution.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 04:55 
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Interesting point. The diesel I have just been driving wasn't too bad but it did take a while to warm and demist would be an issue ... but the HC does state that when in moving traffic and stopped you are NOT expected to turn off the engine. That is sensible at least. However if you are waiting for someone and it's freezing then keeping the engine running is sensible! I think this is 'just yet another' way to increase paranoia!
Whilst I don't think that that is intentional, it will have this effect, and aren't drivers finding this ever growing list just getting too silly and too much.
We're told there isn't money for Police Patrols yet there's money to enforce people if you 'dare' leaving an engine running while 'parked'!

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 16:09 
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I'd think in really cold weather, in a diesel car you'd find that with heater on any more than first notch, then engine temp would drop when stationary.Even when my engine temperature has been normal for some time ,on my car ( only 85k on clock) ,the temperature will drop in winter if stopped with heater on high .
Not just my car. I used to do a lot of night standby before retiring. We went to site, got back in van and got comfy. Standard procedure was to go for a run to warm up engine and sit with engine running and heater on low till called/job stopped. On really cold nights, we might have to move off for a quick warm up run.
Look closely at the big trucks on ICE ROAD TRUCKERS ,all diesel powered, and you'll notice they all have radiator covers.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 16:40 
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I have a fuel burning auxiliary heater on my car so I could turn off the engine, still burn fuel and pollute the air. I wonder how they would legislate against that?

BTW, this is used normally so that the engine warms up quickly thus reducing pollution overall.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 16:44 
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Nice idea .Malcolm, but BEWARE. Watching the BA TV programs on immigration control, one of the key signs of illegals is the "bonfire " smell.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 19:17 
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botach wrote:
I'd think in really cold weather, in a diesel car you'd find that with heater on any more than first notch, then engine temp would drop when stationary.Even when my engine temperature has been normal for some time ,on my car ( only 85k on clock) ,the temperature will drop in winter if stopped with heater on high .
Not just my car. I used to do a lot of night standby before retiring. We went to site, got back in van and got comfy. Standard procedure was to go for a run to warm up engine and sit with engine running and heater on low till called/job stopped. On really cold nights, we might have to move off for a quick warm up run.
Look closely at the big trucks on ICE ROAD TRUCKERS ,all diesel powered, and you'll notice they all have radiator covers.


Yup. Not all diesels but the more recent ones (after about "Euro 4" emissions levels).

Back in the early 1980s I can remember being a spotty-faced engineering undergraduate and having a visiting lecturer in thermodynamics come and teach us about diesels. He told us just how spectacularly inefficient the internal combustion engine was, but how things were slowly improving. I can remember one of the brighter students sticking up their hand and asking if he ever thought the engines would get SO efficient that manufacturers would struggle to get enough waste heat from the cooling system to power the heater? He just laughed...

And here we are, 30-odd years later, with PRECISELY that problem! If you sit there in neutral at about 2000 revs, most of them will just about make enough heat to keep you toasty!


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 19:22 
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malcolmw wrote:
I have a fuel burning auxiliary heater on my car so I could turn off the engine, still burn fuel and pollute the air. I wonder how they would legislate against that?

BTW, this is used normally so that the engine warms up quickly thus reducing pollution overall.

That one's really funny. Most modern diesels have "combustion heaters". Typically 4-5 kW and they just burn diesel from the tank and dump the heat into the cooling system. Not much to do with the comfort of the occupants, just simply to try and get the oil warm enough to avoid condensation problems.

The standard EU emissions / fuel consumption test is done from "cold" (which means 18 degrees C lab temperature) start-up. Needless to say, all the manufacturers programme their combustion heaters such that they don't cut in until the ambient temperature drops below 10 or even 5 degrees, so you never actually see the emissions from these (totally non emission-controlled) heaters in the official figures! Very often if you fire one up on a frosty morning, let it idle for a minute and switch it off, you can smell the fumes from the combustion heater and hear it whirring for a bit as it shuts down. They're MUCH worse than anything that comes out of the tailpipe!


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PostPosted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 17:03 
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Mole wrote:
And here we are, 30-odd years later, with PRECISELY that problem! If you sit there in neutral at about 2000 revs, most of them will just about make enough heat to keep you toasty!


But My van ,and most other derv beehives only /mostly idle at 1000 RPM . I remember a chat with a bloke at RO0TES on a visit as a spotty faced undergraduate visit to the LINFIELD PLANT(somewhere near/ outside Glasgow). Weeks before , I was told of a horrendous accident ,involving a HILLMAN IMP which ploughed into the rear of a stopped vehicle, The IMP front end exploded on impact. I asked the question - and got a reply " we don't engineer for accidents" - possibly why ROOTS is not in existence.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 00:21 
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Yes, you have to keep your foot on the throttle to hold it at 2k (or thereabouts). it's quite amazing how efficient they are these days. Imp bloke was unlucky - same could have happened in a 911 or Beetle, I guess.


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