Help keep our children healthy. Turn off your engine.
When you keep your engine running, your vehicle creates harmful chemicals and wastes fuel. Idling fumes can cause serious diseases like asthma, heart disease, chronic bronchitis and cancer.1
Save fuel. Save money.
- If you idle more than 10 seconds, you waste gas.1
- It takes less gas to restart your engine than to idle for 10 seconds or longer.1
- Idling 15 minutes a day costs you $300 per year. 1
- Idling burns up oil. The more you idle, the more frequent your car will need an oil change.1
Protect the planet.
- Idling cars release harmful chemicals, gasses and pollutants into the environment.2
- These emissions contribute to regional haze and global climate change.2
- For every 10 minutes your engine is off, you’ll prevent 1 pound of carbon dioxide.1
- Every gallon of gas burned produces more than 20 pounds of greenhouse gases.2
Keep kids healthy and safe.
- When you sit in an idling car, you breathe in exhaust that leaks into the car cabin.1
- Children’s lungs are still developing. They inhale more air per pound of body weight than adults.3
- Cars and buses idling outside a school, make it hard for students to hear moving cars.4
- Breathing exhaust fumes can damage brain cells and may be linked to autism.5
Download idling facts and ways to be Idle Free 253.
Available in English | Español (Spanish) | អក្សរខ្មែរ (Khmer) | ພາສາລາວ (Lao) |Русский (Russian) | Gagana fa’a Samoa (Samoan) | Українська (Ukrainian) | Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese).
Ways to be idle free while you wait
When it’s cold outside.
- Keep blankets in your car.
- Warm up your engine by driving it, not idling.
- Turn on the car for a few minutes to warm up, then turn it off.
When it’s hot outside.
- Open the windows.
- Park you car and go inside a store or building with air conditioning.
- Turn on the the car for a few minutes to cool it off, then turn it off.
Questions? Contact us!
Contact Angee Moore at amoore@tpchd.org or (253) 355-8308.
Resources
- It’s your turn, turn it off—Pledge now to end unnecessary idling.
- Walking School Bus Guidebook—Start a walking bus or bike train to your school.
- City of Tacoma Suggested Waking Route Maps for TPS elementary schools.
- Air quality index—Learn about the health effects of the five most common air pollutants, and how to avoid those effects.
- Air Now in Tacoma—See the current air quality.
- Air Now fire and smoke map.
- Purple Air—Real-time home air quality sensors.