With the help of Warwickshire County Council’s Road Safety Education Team, our Eco-committee have launched a campaign to improve the air quality around our school at the start and end of the day.
We are now encouraging everybody who travels by car to prevent idling by switching off your engine. Idling means leaving a car engine running whilst it is stationary. When stationary for more than 10 seconds please consider switching off your engine.
According to Living Streets and the British Lung Foundation, there are several benefits to our children and families when we prevent idling:
- · By preventing the breathing in of harmful fumes from idling vehicles, we can reduce the risk of health problems such as lung and heart disease, strokes, and respiratory illnesses.
- · The average emissions of a passenger vehicle are 4.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – by switching off your engine you can help to reduce this figure.
- · Drivers can save money by not wasting fuel when a car is switched on unnecessarily.
For more information about idling cars, Living Streets have produced an anti-idling toolkit which can be found at: https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-us/tackle-air-pollution
You can follow the Road Safety Education team on Facebook @WCCSafeActiveTravel, and on Twitter: @WCCSafe_Active