I have a real pet peeve that is actually harmful to the environment. You probably have seen this practice going over every morning and afternoon for nine months each year. It is the practice of getting in a line of cars to drop children off, or pick them up, at their school. The pet peeve is that most parents will sit in a long line of cars and the children will wait to get out of the car until they are at the front of the line closest to the front door of the school. Most of these kids simply will not get out of the car even 15 feet back. They wait until they get to the front of the line. The idling of all of those engines burn needless amounts of gas and lets huge amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. It gets even worse in the afternoon. I have witnessed some parents get to school as much as 20 minutes early to pick up their children and sit in their cars while they idle.
If a few of these cars would pull up away from the line of cars and drop their children off so that they might have to walk across a parking lot, the carbon emission savings would be enormous. Think about it. If only 10 people got out of the long line of idling cars at each school that would end up being thousands and thousands of cars across the nation. That would make a dent in helping our environment, not to mention that it would never hurt those children to walk a little bit farther.
What do you think? Do you agree with me that this is such a stupid practice? Do you think that we could get 10 people at each school to change their practices? Do you think it would help the environment? I would like to hear from you in either the comments section or at
bruce@bruzzbuzz.com.
