...and would you like a salad with your CO, SO2 ?


On the way to return a rented movie (Big Trouble, Tim Allen, if you must know), I passed by a strip mall of sorts. You know the kind, various eating joints, with outdoor seating, candle lights etc. Right next to the outdoor seating, is the car park (parking lot).
Some really smart guy, left his two little kids (age around 6-7) inside the car (Volvo XC90), windows rolled up with the engine on as well as the AC. It was around 7:45 in the evening, it wasn't too hot outside, but very similar to a warm summer night in the higher latitudes.
Now, I've tried to sleep in a car that had the AC on and its engine on. I couldn't. Because I was deathly afraid of dying of CO from the car. I was about 17 at the time. During those years I had read so many magazine articles about couple dying inside a car, dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. What had happened is that these couple after "doing the deed", would fall asleep in the backseat of the car (AC on, engine on, windows rolled up).
So I guess, I'm a little paranoid.
In any case, in some countries, it is illegal, to leave your children unattended in a vehicle.
Especially when the windows are rolled up, regardless of the AC being on or off.
Especially when the engine is on. ("oops sorry dad, i didnt mean to kick the gear in reverse and run over that nice man who was eating dinner.")

The other issue that I have with this scenario, is that there is a restaurant and there are *people eating* on the back end of this car!!!!! (it was parked head facing out, with its tail towards the restaurant)
I don't care how efficient the burn cycle is of the engine, as long as it is using carbon based fuels (petrochemical based), it will be spewing out CO, SO2, and God knows what else. Its bad enough that we have to inhale this crap every day, every night, but to also injest it at the same time ? From our food, water, wine, salad, entree, desert ??

Sheesh.
I can imagine the discourse between myself and the driver of the car. "It was only for 5 minutes to return a video". "Mind your own business". "The people inhaling the exhaust of my car don't seem to mind".
i'm pasting a googled eye smiley here.

cheers.