Politics & Government
Village Follows Town's Footsteps With Idling Policy
Southampton Advocates for the Village Environment encourage board to adopt practices that discourage allowing vehicles to idle.
Members of Southampton Village's "green" committee, Southampton Advocates for the Village Environment, or SAVE, have successfully lobbied the Village Board to adopt a policy to reduce motor vehicle idling.
The idling-reduction policy was crafted in 2010 by the town's Sustainable Southampton Committee. SAVE adapted the policy to fit the village.
The policy directs village employees and officials to shut engines off when they are parked or stopped, and it would encourage residents and visitors to do the same by putting up signs. SAVE also plans to get local schoolchildren involved in raising awareness, just as SAVE did with the village's bag on plastic shopping bags.
"We know we are all deeply wedded to our vehicles and spend significant portions of our day in them ... this is a fact of modern life," SAVE member Susan Dubner told the Village Board Tuesday. "The change we encourage you to instutite is a simple yet potent one: adopt an anti-idling policy in our village."
Dubner said that 10 minutes of idling a vehicle a day amounts to wasting 27 gallons of gasoline per year.
"Turn off your engine if you are stopped; do not let your car idle. By doing this, you are doing the right thing by our community and will profit both figuratively and literally."
She said idling can also damage engine components and reduce the life of motor oil.
Idling is also responsible for emissions that contribute to carbon pollution, reduce air quality and can contribute to respiratory diseases and cancer.
SAVE member Mackie Finnerty said that the cost to institute the policy will be minimal — just the cost of signs for parking lots at village offices and beaches. And she suggested that signs could share space on existing posts, rather than paying $18 for each new post.
The policy would not apply to emergency vehicles, so firefighters, police officers and ambulance drivers will not be affected.
Roger Blaugh, another of the SAVE members, told the board that the future of automobiles is vehicles that shut their engines down when they are stopped for long, and reboot as soon as the gas peddle is pressed again.
