I think most of the residents here in St. Albert don’t even know about the new idling bylaw from October last year.
In the morning when I am leaving to go to work, a lot of my neighbours are idling their vehicles. I am not always leaving at the exact same time, but I always can see the same vehicles, and the engines are running 30 minutes or even longer.
I went to Shoppers Drug Mart here in St. Albert. Five vehicles were parked in front of the store, SUVs and trucks and the engines were running. I left about 20 minutes later and four of them were still there. You can see the same at Superstore or other places as well. Sometimes it is not even -10 C but you can still see this bad habit, even in the summertime.
There is a mom, she opens the garage door, starts up her car in the garage, idling the engine for a longer period and her children are running around or sit inside the car and have to breathe the exhaust fumes, which are very dangerous and do cause cancer, other diseases or can even kill you. We are talking about carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, which are way more dangerous compared to cigarette smoke.
I think a lot of people do not realize the danger of carbon monoxide/dioxide. Every year, a lot of people are killed by carbon monoxide/dioxide poisoning.
I think education is the key to get rid of this dangerous habit because our children have to pay the bill for this with their health.
Frank Becker, St. Albert
