Idle Free Taipei

Today's Taipei Times contains a letter by one John Fleckenstein, who has apparently set up a website: Idle-Free Taipei. The gist of the letter is an argument for people to shut off their scooter engines whilst idling at red lights on account of the wasted fuel and air pollution thus generated. The proposition itself is as sensible as it is simple, and I often switch off my own engine at red lights (though it depends on the circumstances). However, some of the language used in the letter reveals exactly the wrong sort of perspective from which this argument is being made.

"I have recently started a campaign directed at those who use their scooters to commute and seemingly will do so forever, regardless of improvements and expansions made to public transportation."

Right from the off, I didn't like it; the language here is that of the military metaphor - and that's distinctly uncivil. I don't care that you think other people should use public transport rather than their scooters - what ought to be made salient to you Fleckenstein, is the impertinence of your criticism: you don't get to set other people's priorities for them. Only they get to do that.

"...the mission is for drivers to turn off their scooter engines at all of those seemingly endless red lights... With the help of a friend, I found that this idea has already been discussed, even with the prospect that it might one day become a law."

I imagine that with some imagination and application of effort, this could be a "mission actually possible", and thus the question of introducing yet another law is, at best, out of place. All a new law would succeed in doing is generating more income and paperwork for the traffic police.

"For the past two months I have been driving all around Taipei during the morning and evening rush hours with a watch and a camera trying to get a better idea of how much idling occurs. I found that at a single traffic light, the cumulative stoppage for scooters can be up to, and even more than 80 minutes."

Eh? The relevant data would surely be the ratios of stoppage times to distances per different parts of the city. In any case, the numbers aren't really necessary to surmise the point - people spend a fair bit of time stuck at red lights. Granted.

"In addition, the average time spent waiting at a traffic light is 63 seconds, which means that for every 1km driven, the typical scooter is idling for approximately 86 seconds (which averages to about 35 percent of the total commute time)."

So "total commute time" is about 4 mins - but total commute time for whom? Is this supposed to be an average for all of Taipei's scooter drivers?

"Once you take the number of scooters in Taipei and multiply it by the average commute distance, it is easy to see how much idling is really going on."

Well what is the average commuting distance for scooter drivers in Taipei? I don't actually know.

"...scooter commuters are burning an obscene amount of fuel every minute, let alone every day."

Obscene? Bit too strong; at least they're doing their bit to feed the plants with nutritious C02...

"If there is anything that can be done to help promote this cause, it would be greatly appreciated."

Yes - argue your case on its' own merits without the fallback to Statist "solutions" like passing a law and punishing the plebs with fines. I'm sympathetic to the argument, but not to the premises in which it is couched.

Update (Monday 23rd May): "Engelbert Altenburger" writes:

"Taiwan’s seemingly helpless Ministry of Transportation and Communications has never tackled the issue.... It’s the duty of everybody to raise these standards."

Put those two sentences together and the likely implication ought to be clear, which was why I made my criticisms of Fleckenstein.