It’s good that Three Rivers District Council is urging drivers to stop their engines running when parked (Idling engines ruin the planet, Watford Observer, November 1). This is certainly a good message to put across, but in fact the council could do a lot more to deal with the problem.

READ MORE: Three Rivers Council encourages drivers to stop vehicle idling

No mention is made of the fact that leaving an engine running while a vehicle is parked practice is an offence under section 42 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. Furthermore the Road Traffic (Vehicle Emissions) Regulations 2002 made it a fixed-penalty offence carrying a £20 fine.

Fixed penalty notices are issued by the council, not the police. The council could probably ask its own officers or traffic wardens to issue the notices, but as with a lot of such environmental offences just the threat has a reasonable effect.

Watford Borough Council could also usefully give the matter publicity. There seem to be more and more vehicles sitting waiting, usually to pick people up, with their engines idling. With modern quiet engines maybe drivers forget the engine is running, or it could be that they don’t want to get a little bit hot or a little bit cold by turning the air conditioning off!

A particularly bad location is the service road next to Watford Junction station where taxis wait. Many taxis in the queue sit with their engines running. The exhaust fumes hit you when you walk past. Vigorous action by the council would do the taxi drivers a favour as they are sitting in one another’s exhaust fumes.

Another location where the problem is bad is the service road outside Watford High Street station. There it is private vehicles rather than taxis that are the offenders.

Regular visits to these locations by suitably empowered traffic wardens could improve the air quality quite considerably.

Peter Hutchinson

By email