Turning off engine during stops

I don’t see any problems with turning off the engine when you park the car for any reason. But I do see a few problems with stopping the engine in certain places:



- Don’t stop the engine at a traffic light. You don’t know how quickly the light will come to you, and you also might cause the light to end the green early (because you didn’t move). This will make drivers behind you mad.



- Don’t stop the engine in a drive-through.



- Don’t stop the engine in any kind of traffic if it is hard to start.



Don’t stop the engine in a drive-through? Do you care to explain why? I don’t see any reasoon not to. You end up waiting for your food anyway after you arrive at the window, so you wouldn’t be holding up the line. Why race to the front of the line only to wait? If it is a drive-up ATM, there is usually no line behind me, so shutting off the engine sounds like a good idea to me at the drive-up ATM.

I can’t think of a single reason not to shut off the engine in a drive-through. Anyone in that big of a hurry has created their own problem.

Frankly I can't think of a significant reason not to stop the engine.  The items listed are not all that important or likely IMO.  I suspect that opinion is going to be the best you are going to be able to come up with on this.  

On the other hand I can't think of any really good reason to stop the engine in any of those situations (other than having a hybrid that is designed to do that.  The fuel saved will be minimal and the wear on the starter and engine and bother certainly will outweigh and possible gain.

There is a very long thread on this website about idling. It covers the same thing. I agree that any turning off which causes delays in traffic or a potential hazard should be avoided. Most psoters on the idling thread seemed to come to this conclusion.

It makes the guy behind mad.

How do you psot? :smiley:

Frankly, I can’t think of any good reasons for using a drive-through, unless it is after regular business hours and the front door of the bank or the fast food joint is locked. If everyone would simply park his/her car and go into the establishment in question, there would be multiple benefits:

*You would definitely use less gas.

*You would get a little exercise (admittedly not much, but anything is better than nothing).

and, perhaps most significantly of all–

*In many cases you would finish your transaction faster.

I know that when I go to the bank, I am invariably back in my car after taking care of business while the same cars are still sitting in a line-up at the drive-through. And, even if a fast food purchase took a bit longer by going inside, you would save yourself from the all-too-frequent screw-ups of orders at the drive-through!

With respect to a traffic light, no.

At a bank, drive-through, etc. where you’re off of the [public] road(s), then yes. At both places they take your money and you always have to wait for your order, so shut it off.

It that is all it takes, the guy has anger management issues. Really, that can’t be the only reason…