I was sure it was my imagination.
Who in the world would turn off their car engine, sometimes for barely a minute, at a traffic light? No one in their right mind, that’s who! In the summer with my window down, some cars around me at traffic lights seemed to be starting their engines before moving again.
I sympathized, thinking, that’s a rather inconvenient mechanical problem.
Several months went by; enough time for me to realize that I wasn’t just hearing things, car engines were actually being switched off at traffic lights. There could not possibly be that many defective vehicles out there.
I concluded it was a thing. Deliberate and premeditated.
Green-minded motorists must be voluntarily turning off their motors after being told by someone, somewhere, that one minute less of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere would be a positive thing for the world. After questioning the impact it would have on our planet, I concluded the practice of switching off a motor and then switching it on again, was no less ridiculous.
A few months ago, we bought a vehicle that, much to my dismay, suddenly switched off its motor at a traffic light. No one told me the vehicle had this feature/annoyance included. Suddenly, I was one of the - what I considered - hapless motorists with a vehicle that switches itself off at red lights and then on again when the light changed to green and I removed my foot from the brake pedal.
Not a chance! I am not going to drive like this.
I learned there is a button in the car that allows me to bypass the engine cutoff feature/annoyance.
It would be much more practical to be able to shut it off for good, but, as it turns out, I have to shut it off each time I get in the car to make a trip.
Now as winter settles in, I get in the car in the morning, press the seat warmer button, the steering wheel warmer button and the button cancelling the engine idle cutoff feature/annoyance.
Are you sure this is progress?
