Verdant VigilanteAbout
My role as an activist in the environmental
movement is quite focused on idling.
Focused and personal.
It began more than 4 years ago when we went to war for a
second time in the
One evening, I became particularly fed up with a stretch limo parked in front of my apartment house, idling, as his customers were inside a nearby restaurant. It was spring, at night and around 50 degrees outside. I knocked on the window. The limo driver and I had a 10 minute discussion. Ultimately, I convinced him to shut off his engine.
This first success gave me courage.
For the next six months I would follow the same procedure on
my way to and from work and on the weekends.
I found myself becoming more and more successful. One
evening, I asked someone who appeared to be a limo driver to
shut off his engine. It
was an undercover policeman.
I backed off but the officer said…
“Did you know there
is a law against it…? Fines too?
But I’m not sure how much the fines are??”
That was a true catalyst for me. I had actually been enforcing a law, as a vigilante, so to speak, not even knowing it. I did extensive research and worked with the State EPA to learn more about the law and fines.
Once I had a clear handle on the law and fines, I had cards printed. This describes the law on one side and penalties on the other.
This gave me more confidence….but with this tool in hand, I wanted to keep tabs on how successful, statistically, I would become. So I created an excel spread sheet
In my encounters, I always start of my conversation by saying,
“Excuse me
for bothering you…but are you aware that it’s against the law to
idle your car engine in NYC for more then 3 minutes?”
No matter what happens in-between, in the end I always give them a mild command.
Statistics
In my first year of keeping records, I had
823
encounters
11% were
female and 88% male
I was
unsuccessful 23% of the time but I was
successful 78% percent
of the time …and by success I mean I would watch the violator shut
off his engine.
Other
interesting stats are
55% were caucasian
25% knew of
the law but idled anyway
53% were
between the ages of 35 and 50
And 12%
were limos
The statistics were basically the same in year two but I had only 615 encounters. Less production, but I was more successful, at least with limos….because I was only successful 70% of the time in year one and I was 90% successful in year two.
So, in two years I have had 1438 total encounters, or roughly 59 a month. I’m on track in year three for the same. But key here is that 77 % will shut off their engines…with only ME asking them to do so.
Imagine how agreeable NYC citizens would be if more knew about the law (when only roughly 25% know of it) and how much quicker they would know about it….if police enforced it and fines were issued. The word would spread very quickly.
And a huge sum of money would have been raised. If I had been a police officer issuing idling tickets during this time, I could have raised $316,360 for the city, and this just while walking to and from work and weekend strolls. This calculation is based on the lowest ticket amount which is $220 but tickets for third time offenders can reach $2,000.