On page 8 of this week's Time Out magazine, you’ll find a snippet of my interview with Sadiq Khan. Here's the interesting part of our exchange about vehicle idling:

David:  You can idle outside a school for as long as you want and only if an authorised person asks you to stop and you refuse to do so within two minutes can you then be issued with a fine but you could do that every single day, five days a week and never get fined. An effective idling policy is where you take the vehicle registration, you send the vehicle owner information on air pollution and climate change and a warning and if their vehicle is caught idling again they receive a substantial fine whether it’s £80, £100, and every single time they get caught idling after that they get a fine. One warning, then a fine. that’s fair for our children, for their futures and for their lungs. At the moment the policy of raising awareness of drivers and asking them to switch of and they always do is just..

Sadiq:  You’re making my point for me, to lobby the government to change the law aren’t you?

David:  Right, I’ve got a petition on that, please do sign

Sadiq:  Do you support giving money to councilors through the Mayors Air Quality Fund to have higher fines and better enforcement?

David:  Unfortunately it’s not actually going to be effective until we change the law

Sadiq:  So you don’t think higher fines will be effective?

David:  higher fines doesn’t make any difference

Sadiq:  £160 vs £20?

David:  No one pays Sadiq, no one pays, because everyone who gets caught turns off their engine, that’s the problem. “I’m caught idling, oh no, there you go, I’ll turn it off”. In Wandsworth, no fines, in Camden, no fines..

Sadiq:  You’re making my point for me, we need legislation to change

David:  Could you say to Councils, take the risk, take drivers information, if they idle again give them a fine and take it in front of a judge and say ‘does the law allow us to do this?’

Sadiq:  It doesn’t, the law says you’ve got to give somebody notice, if after two minutes they are still idling their car it’s possible to issue a £20 fine, that isn’t a deterrent

David:  And if you see them idling the next day, can you issue a fine or do you have to go and ask them again

Sadiq:  You’ve got to go and ask them again

David:  And that’s where the problem is

Sadiq:  Exactly, so help me lobby the government

David:  OK, help me by signing our petition???