Drivers who leave their engines running when parked risk a £40 fine from today.
Signs went up across the city in December ready for enforcement to start in the new year.
Drivers can be fined if their idling cars are in a parking bay, taxi rank and other parts of the road, but the new rule doesn’t apply to sitting in traffic.
The fine is reduced to £20 if paid within 10 days.
Councillor Tim Rowkins, chair of the City Environment, South Downs and The Sea Committee said last year: “Improving the city’s air quality is extremely important, especially for those who suffer from long term respiratory conditions like asthma and lung disease.
“Enforcing engine idling is something we hope will deter motorists from releasing harmful emissions unnecessarily. We’re asking those parked up to switch off their engines and reduce air pollution.”
If an environmental enforcement officer witnesses a car idling, they’ll speak to the driver to let them know they’re committing an offence.
They’ll take the drivers details, including their registration number, and issue them with a fixed penalty notice.
If the driver refuses to give their details or drives off, the council will contact Sussex Police to collect the details and the FPN will be sent in the post.
An idling engine can produce up to twice as many exhaust emissions as an engine in motion. Exhaust emissions contain a range of air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter.
Perhaps some clarifications on rules and exceptions from the council wouldn’t go amiss.
– What is defined as “parked up”? Do you need handbrake applied?
– Can you wait with engine running to demist windows?
– Does it apply to emergency vehicles, delivery vehicles, and other commercial vehicles including PSVs?
– Does it apply on my own, or private properties such as supermarket car parks?
– Does it apply to hybrids running on batteries?
– Does it apply to cars with stop-start technology running on batteries?
– Does it only apply to all ICE vehicles including so called “electric” buses that still have diesel engines?
– Does it apply to motorbikes?
Would be interesting to know if any motorists were involved in designing and implementing this scheme?
Since the council last published a report on air pollution in 2019 we’ve had the Covid-19 crisis with more working from home (especially council employees 😉), more drivers have switched to EVs and Euro6 ICE vehicles, and council statistics have shown emission levels dropping every year. Is this acheme really required, what monitoring of the effect on emission levels will be performed, and what are the predefined success criteria?
BertY
What a lot of questions, can answer some of those for you.
According to various Government books, Highway code etc, the definition of ‘Parked’ means left unattended. The H/B need not be applied as automatics have a ‘P’ mode fitted.
A vehicle with a driver with the engine running is classed as ‘Waiting’, however the law states
Rule 123 You MUST NOT leave a parked vehicle unattended with the engine running or leave a vehicle engine running unnecessarily while that vehicle is stationary on a public road. Generally, if the vehicle is stationary and is likely to remain so for more than a couple of minutes, you should apply the parking brake and switch off the engine to reduce emissions and noise pollution. However it is permissible to leave the engine running if the vehicle is stationary in traffic or for diagnosing faults.
The Law states you must not drive if your vision is restricted, so yes you can demist the windows.
Emergency vehicles are exempt. Delivery vehicles, hmm, not sure but some, will need to run if they are refrigerated.
PCV’s, whilst loading or unloading at bus stops there is no requirement for them to be switched off unless they will be more than two minutes.
Hope that helps.
Your reply has just conceded this is an utterly bonkers and unenforceable initiative as it comes with no black and white definition or parameters and how are the council possibly going to police and enforce this without officers in every street 24/7, whose wage bill would wipe out any fines collected?
FYI Most drivers wouldn’t dream of leaving their cars unattended with engines running as thieves could just jump in and steal them.
Barry
In the main the idea does have it’s merits. Some drivers on school runs do leave their engines running for long periods and that can’t be good for the residents, school etc.
There will be genuine reasons why a driver might sit with the engine on, a flat battery for example.
There’s no defined parameters as you say.
I would imagine enforcement officers will be the same as the CEO giving out parking fines.
I think the problem will be for enforcers to prove an offence has been made.
FYI I quoted what the Highway Code stated, however, you use the word ‘most’, and yes most of us wouldn’t leave them unattended but a few few thickies have, like the idiot delivery driver a few weeks ago I encountered, luckily the guy who jumped in it moved it to get his car out of a drive. lol.
Yep, Emergency Vehicles have a series of exemptions that allows them to do things other vehicles would not be allowed to do. One of them is to leave the engine running unattended.
Refrigerated vehicles typically have an inverter that allows the electrics to run without the engine being on, ironically the same in an standard ambulance DCA.
Hi Ben,
I used the term ‘some’ refrigerated vehicles as some older vehicles don’t have inverters.
Sure! I’m not trying to be pedantic, just additive to your information!
https://www.webuyanycar.com/about-us/press-centre/car-market-statistics/
“Since… 2019 … more drivers have switched to EVs and Euro6 ICE vehicles”
See statistics here: https://www.webuyanycar.com/about-us/press-centre/car-market-statistics/
In 2022, a total of 1,614,063 new cars were registered.
Sales of used cars 20
Used petrol and diesel: 7,277,291
Used hybrid, Electric, plug in hybrid: 228,996
” and council statistics have shown emission levels dropping every year. “
“Since… 2019 … more drivers have switched to EVs and Euro6 ICE vehicles”
Car sales since 2019/2020, UK wide.
Car sales 2021
New cars
Petrol and diesel: 1,107,000
hybrid, Electric, plug in hybrid: 568,000
Used cars
petrol and diesel: 7,277,291
hybrid, Electric, plug in hybrid: 228,996
Car sales 2022
New cars
petrol and diesel: 949,000
hybrid, Electric, plug in hybrid: 700,000
Used cars
Used petrol and diesel: 6,594,880
Used hybrid, Electric, plug in hybrid: 281,17
Clearly most cars bought new or used are petrol or diesel in the UK. Are you suggesting that brightonians are buying hybrid, Electric or plug in hybrids at a disproportionate rate?
”and council statistics have shown emission levels dropping every year. “
https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/environment/noise-pollution-and-air-quality/2022-air-quality-annual-status-report-asr
The linked PDF. It’s a bit much for me to read right now but skimming it I notice that Brighton and Hove is overly dependent on delivery services. Yes the toxic fumes are reducing, with some areas being worse than others. This doesn’t dispprove objective, known emmision released from stationary vehicles. Emmisoons data shows us the pollution produced over time, and basic observation will show you cars sat iddling across Brighton (unless you don’t walk around and only drive, In which case how could you understand there’s a problem?).
If many cars are observed to idle in Brighton and Hove, and we know how much pollution iddling diesel and petrol cars produce, why do we need to rely on a report that doesn’t actually have sufficient data collected to draw your conclusion. The part of the data that we are focusing on in the PDF is pollution in the suburbs, or basically the areas not monitored closely in the report…
Just commenting that with EVs and Euro6 petrol and diesel ICE engines emissions of NOx and particulates is significantly lower contributing to the lowering of atmospheric pollution measured by the council.
It’s not just migration to EVs and hybrids.
Demisting doesn’t count as idling, as it is preparing to drive, and driving off without without doing so would be unlawful, as this is dangerous.
Are you the official council spokesperson on this matter?
No Berty, I have just read my Highway Code.
To add as well, private property is not an enforceable area. So for example, Asda Car Park, idle away!
Ben
Be careful what you state, that is incorrect information. Asda Car Park is used by the public and therefore under highways and law. Nowhere does any sign state the road is ‘Private’.
I welcome this, so long as enforced. This definitely applies to parents parking up 30 mins-+ before school drop off/pick up engines running to keep warm in the winter and cool in the summer. This problem has been exacerbated by the school streets programme meaning parents who have to drive find it more difficult to find a parking spot, so get onto local streets early, further undermining any ‘benefit’ to the pollution levels children walking to/from school and local communities are exposed to. Hopefully signs will be strategically placed where this is a particular issue.
Given that cars often sit in the road outside my house parked with their engines running I really welcome this initiative – turning off the car engine is a very simple way to reduce pollution to the benefit of us all. Yes there may be questions of clarification but basically it is our individual responsibility as motorists to do what we need to do.
Like the forthcoming red routes on the Lewes and London roads the council’s predefined success criteria almost certainly will be the amount of money they raise in fines…
Fines are very simple to avoid by not idling your engine , not speeding, not parking where you shouldn’t or using red routes / bus lanes when you shouldn’t.
ChrisC I do not recognise your authority over me. Please prove what authority you have over me or any other adult in this city.
Good grief,
You’ve ventured into “freeman of the land” nonsense.
Why is not breaking the law to avoid being fined such a hard concept for you and other motorists so hard to grasp?
An early entry for Most Unhinged Comment of the Year
Simpler just to drive elsewhere instead where councils try to encourage businesses and visitors and the associated revenue and jobs they bring.
You say this, and have been saying this all last year, but yet…
Thank you for your interest and inability to comment on my statement’s validity.
Well, yesterday drove to Hobbycraft in Littlehampton instead of driving / bussing to Brighton. Didn’t want to get soaking wet at bus stops, and Lewes Road is horrible.
Week before last did shopping in Burgess Hill instead of Brighton.
Various journeys around city but never drove into town centres or caught buses as services so unreliable.
As a council employee, how do your travel to work as I see in the article on buses you pay an awful lot for travel each month?
To remind you, since you may have forgotten, I don’t work for the council. My milage comes from travelling around the UK for work. Public transport would never be an option for me, such is the life I lead!
Happy New Year from the Labour council which hates its residents, businesses and visitors and will do anything it can think of to penalise and milk them.
They do realise that stop/start technology uses most vehicle batteries up at a rate of one a year and that switching an engine on and off again uses more power than that saved by turning it off for traffic lights…?
And presumably it’s now ok with our council for engines to drive around using more fuel at sub-optimal temperatures and with vehicle windows steamed or iced up?
Most vehicle batteries for ICE vehicles used to last five years or more before stop/start technology came along so the fact they need replacing so often now is an environmental scandal never talked about.
Did you even read the article? It specifically states that the rule doesn’t apply to sitting in traffic, for example at traffic lights.
It’s a perfectly reasonable rule telling drivers to turn off their engine when it doesn’t need to be running.
You can’t even consider for a moment that maybe, just maybe, you could do this tiny tiny thing that benefits the pedestrians around you?
Why not just comply with this and avoid a fine? It’s hardly an inconvenience.
What is it about some motorists that makes them so toddler like when asked to adapt their behaviour in such a small way?
The only motorists who get “penalised” or “milked” are those who do things they shouldn’t!
And millions of motorists manage day in day out not to get fined at all because they don’t do things they shouldn’t,
Except when councils make signage deliberately vague and counter-intuitive …. a bit like Marlborough Place. Remind us how much bhcc has managed to extort from unsuspecting motorists
This is not Kindergarten and you are not Head Teacher of the electorate with any right to tell other adults how to live their lives. We all drive legally-taxed and emissions-tested vehicles and if we disobey any laws that is the Police’s job to deal with, not yours, or that of any Council Officer. End of. You can all put your CP overreach where the sun don’t shine.
You have becoming ridiculous with your rantings.
I’m not telling you what to do just pointing out how easy it is to avoid being fined!
Can we also invoke fines for idling council officers?
Should make a mint!
Let us ‘invoke fines for idling council officers’ indeed. Let’s see some equity under law as we are entitled to.
Best comment of the day.
Very good
Once again a glorious virtue signalling concept brought to you by the woke and clueless fools in the Transport Dept, hoping to screw more money from the hapless motorist, whilst they squander millions on unwanted projects
What is “parked up”? Why not simply “parked”?
This Labour lot seem no better than the Greens.
No surprise there. They learnt the art of screwing the motorist from masters.
Unenforceable clap trap. I do we wish this eco/electrictrification drive would do one.
All about money and a little virtue signalling.
Very good
But will this put an end to the amount of double parked vans on the St? I won’t hold my breath. Our of all the so called modern car’s being used in Brighton you very rarely see them stationary without the engine still running, the tech is there they just don’t use it, that being said once everything is electric our next and current problem is that it’s tyre dust that’s the bigger pollution that is bad for our health let alone our way of life on this planet.
The bitterest irony of this new bye-law is that BHCC has been the greatest criminal in our City for about 20 years – since its Cityclean purchased bin lorries to replace the fleet driven away by SITA, when they walked away from their waste contract with us, because the Hollingdean Depot workers were ‘unmanageable’, apparently!
And the crimes repeated many times a day across our City?
In contravention of the Road Traffic Acts ‘Leaving a vehicle (a bin lorry) unattended with the engine running’!
And why? For reasons sadly not explored by Ms McColgan KC in her recent report (extortionately overpriced at some £265k, whilst leaving so many aspects of Cityclean unexplored!) there appears to be a long-standing conspiracy between Council officers and the GMB to permit drivers to jump down from the cab to assist the loading crew at almost every stop on a collection round!
And why is the engine left running? Because on our bin lorries the hydraulics for the bin-lifts and the internal compactor are powered by a pump driven by the truck’s main engine!
Solutions? Either re-time each collection round to allow for loading the waste by a crew of three or four loaders, with the driver remaining in the cab, in full control of the truck;
Or power the hydraulic pump with a small donkey engine, or a battery-electric system, whereby the driver can switch the main truck engine off, before leaving the cab to help with the loading at the rear?
But will the Council fine itself, or will Sussex Police improve their detection success-rate by asking the CPS to prosecute this 20-year run of multiple criminality (which appears to include the greater crime of ‘Conspiracy to breach the RTA’)?
For us City taxpayers however, perhaps the most worrying aspect of this lawlessness by our Council is that none of the three different Parties who have been in power since 1997 have corrected this unacceptable situation!
Yet the computerised trucks for the emptying of the large street bins work with the driver remaining in the cab (although the problem of residents illegally leaving bulky items at the side of the bins seems to mean we have to pay for one loader to travel with the truck to ‘do something’ about that fly-tipped waste!).
So come on Councillors – your ‘Dereliction of Duty’ in tolerating so much law-breaking, over so many years, needs to be remedied NOW, well ahead of the pettiness of fining citizens for letting engines idle, surely?
In any case, with fuel prices so high, it will mainly be the rich who want their A/C or heating to keep running whilst waiting – they won’t care about a £40 penalty, just as they consider fines for illegal parking to be ‘the cost of doing business’ which their company pays (and might also be tax-deductable in some way!)
And with regard to Hackney taxis, who wait at designated ranks, is the Council going to follow the practice in Scandinavian countries by installing mains power outlets for electric heaters in the taxis, or will passengers be faced with much higher fares to cover the approx £5k cost of installing fuelled heaters in each taxi? Ironically burning diesel, especially noticeable when walking past a parked modern coach in cold weather!
Brighton, Clochemerle?
Hmm, interesting comment on Taxi’s, last time I sat in one they had a heating system already built in, that runs ironically by fuel, so installing a fuelled heater in taxis is a pointless comment.
Installing a electric heater running off a separate battery pack that can be charged when the motor runs would be a better idea.