UnNews:Salt Lake City to crack down on idling
| UnFair and UnBalanced | ✪ | UnNews | ✪ | Saturday, April 20, 2024, 08:28:59 (UTC) |
| Salt Lake City to crack down on idling | 
|
29 November 2011
Salt Lake City, Utah - Ralph Becker, Mayor of Salt Lake City today unveiled a plan to keep the air in the Salt Lake Valley from reaching a level only 12 percent as polluted as Beijing. The Idling cars are the Devil's Workshop plan, set to be implemented on December 1, restricts drivers from idling the engine of their motor vehicles for longer than 13 seconds. The new city-wide ordinance was passed unanimously at 2:15 AM this morning by Becker who also unanimously passed a motion to suspend the normal city council rules that require at least half of the council members to attend city council meetings.
"I am very pleased at receiving this unanimous vote." Becker said. "The support of the council is very gratifying."
Supporters of the plan, bussed in at the expense of the Earth Liberation Front, placed gas generator-powered electric signs up all over the city touting this victory and celebrated with a huge bonfire in Liberty Park.
A woman at the park named Pink Pansy could barely contain her excitement. "We are so proud of our mayor and our city for implementing this earth-friendly ordinance," she said. "I am so happy I could just run naked through the city."
Enforcement provisions in the ordinance called for an additional 12,318 no-idling task force patrol cars to be driving through the city at all times. Out-of-state volunteers have offered to drive these cars day and night looking for violators. When a violator is spotted, the volunteers will be armed with spray paint and will jump out of their cars, and spray a scarlet "I" on the car to indicate an idler. Anyone with an "I" painted on their vehicle will be stopped and ticketed whenever a police officer sees them. Additional volunteers will be placed at stop lights and drive-through restaurants to catch offenders. To keep warm, they will have a large supply of wood and open burn barrels at each of these locations.
"We want to be completely fair.", said volunteer coordinator, Shaggy Guy, "Each volunteer has a stopwatch and has vowed to wait the entire 13 seconds before tagging an offender. If those cars move before the time is up, that's just fine."
When asked about financial implications for the city, Mayor Becker indicated that the fines from the ordinance will more than pay for the operations costs. "I might even be able buy a nicer throne, er furniture for the city council with the excess funds", he reported.
An emergency meeting of the Fast-Food Restaurant Association was scheduled for this morning to address possible implications of the new ordinance for their businesses, but it was sparsely attended.
In unrelated news, 85% of the members of Fast-Food Restaurant Association were reported missing by their families this morning.