Or at least just pissing me off.
I am sitting here on my porch, trying to take advantage of a lovely spring afternoon to do some reading of research articles while sitting in the shade in my nice recycled barrel chair. I live on a narrow, residential street near one of the local high schools, as the attentive reader may recall. Right now I am looking at three, count 'em three, SUVs that have been idling at the curb for 15 minutes. There is one Chevy Suburban (with one female driver) with the windows down, and the woman's (expensively dyed and cut) hair blowing in the breeze of air conditioning. There is another in a Chevy Silverado truck, running with the windows shut and the a/c on, also with one person in the vehicle. That one has been here longer than the other two, so probably idling for more than 15 minutes. The third is a large Toyota minivan, and appears to be turned off. Bonus to that dad for being something less of a gas hog. Each of these vehicles is equipped to carry lots of people and/or stuff, but does not. Plus, they stink. Instead of flowers and grass (and, I admit, a whiff of dog poop every now and again since the pets have been busy while I am reading) I smell exhaust. And, they are parked in front of resident's driveways.
Argh! My street is not your parking lot! Especially not if you are going to sit there are idle and stink the place up!
Posted by binky at May 2, 2008 02:47 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Petty RantsAck, that's awful. People do it all the time here, too. There's a mom who drops her son off at one of my kid's activities and then sits in her SUV reading for an hour (!) with the engine running. Twice a week! And there's an air-conditioned waiting room with benches in the building. I think the owners of the place finally said something to her about it.
Posted by: Casey (kcb) at May 2, 2008 03:37 PM | PERMALINKYeah, the thing that was the most galling to me is that it is a beeyootiful day, the kind we have been waiting for since November. It's not even a/c weather up here yet.
I also fully recognize that I am cranky. I also get irritated when my neighbor uses a blower instead of a broom to clean his sidewalk. But that's also probably because he blows his (chemically treated) grass into my driveway and leaves it there.
Posted by: binky at May 2, 2008 06:48 PM | PERMALINKit's stuff like that that almost wants to make me applaud the escalating gas prices. i've been saying for years that if we paid what europe paid we'd turn into adults about conservation, mass transit, etc., albeit the sort of adults that emerge crankily and reluctantly from spoiled childhoods. it's happening. slowly, but it's happening.
but you do have my sympathy. that totally sucks to put up with on a nice day. you should post signs to trees that note the inefficiency of idling a car for more than 30 seconds. it won't get everyone to stop, but you might shame a couple of people into turning the car off.
Posted by: moon at May 3, 2008 01:21 PM | PERMALINK