8 ms·

The mailman stopping and starting the engine at every mailbox is so ridiculously wasteful, not just of energy but also time. That’s an additional 15-20 seconds

• sgt 4y ago
  Why don't they just let the car idle? I have never seen a postman not doing that.
  • hbarka 4y ago
    I know right. It’s one of those mysteries. Maybe they thought it saved gas, like in the old days when great grandpa would deliberately stop the engine at intersections. (Which by the way is common now in some modern cars and startles me.)
    • sgt 4y ago
      I don't like that feature very much since it basically introduces a lag.
      • mnw21cam 4y ago
        While I didn't like the start/stop feature when I had a hire car briefly, I can't see how it would ever add a lag. By the time you have pressed the clutch pedal down to put it in gear, it has started.
        • jedberg 4y ago
          Most cars in the US are automatics, and it does introduce a lag. I turn it off the moment I turn on the car. It caused me to almost have an accident when I was in stop and go traffic, specifically because of the lag. The person behind me did not expect me to start so slowly right after stopping (I had to wait for the engine shutoff and then to turn back on).
          • kalleboo 4y ago
            I've had rental cars where it had an annoying lag and every start felt like a start from cold (ra-ta-ta-ta-voom), but in my current car there is no lag, by the time I've lifted the brake the engine is ready to go. An auto-stop start is also much quieter than starting from zero. I'm not sure what it's doing - this car has an ISG (integrated starter-generator), I'm not sure if that's the difference.
            • sgt 4y ago
              What car is this? Seems like they are making improvements in this technology, then.
              • kalleboo 4y ago
                It's a 2016 Suzuki Spacia, just a cheap kei car, nothing fancy.
        • sgt 4y ago
          Nobody uses manuals anymore unless you are a driving an enthusiast car like Toyota GT86 etc
          • mnw21cam 4y ago
            Um, what? Last time I saw an automatic, or heard of a friend driving one, was 2004. Also, s/anymore/any more/
            • sgt 4y ago
              Where is this? Most of the world today uses automatics, I think. Or are you thinking of electric without gearboxes?
      • globular-toast 4y ago
        It doesn't introduce lag. At least not in a manual car. By the time you've pressed the clutch down and selected a gear the engine will be ready. You can completely forget about it. If you're talking about automatics then maybe you should get a manual if you are so concerned about lag. Engine start/stop might just be your first "don't like it because it's different" thing.
        • jedberg 4y ago
          A manual has the same lag, except you're coving it up by adding clutch lag instead.
          • crote 4y ago
            The clutch lag is there regardless of the auto stop/start, so adding auto stop/start does not introduce any additional lag.
            • jedberg 4y ago
              Exactly. That’s what I said.
          • globular-toast 4y ago
            Not really. The start/stop system is only activated when the car is put into neutral. This is completely the driver's choice. Most drivers will shift into neutral when they anticipate a longer stop (like when they've just seen the light change red or they've pulled over to take a phone call) and then shift back into gear when they anticipate movement. It's rare to be caught "out of gear" and would generally only happen when the driver isn't paying attention. Nobody shifts into neutral every time the car comes to a complete stop like at a give way sign or in a queue.
        • throwaway742 4y ago
          In the US only 2.4% of cars are manual mostly driven by enthusiasts.
        • vinay427 4y ago
    • euroderf 4y ago
      Oh, is this an automatic "feature" ? That explains what I've been seeing.
      • sgt 4y ago
        And with a lot of cars having turbos, which introduce a noticeable lag (especially as the cars get older - it seems to be inevitable), now you have an additional lag with the auto-stop/start.
        • AdamN 4y ago
          Turbo lag isn't increased by start/stop. Start/stop may delay the initial acceleration but from then on, any turbo lag would be the same regardless of the state of the engine before initial acceleration.
          • sgt 4y ago
            That's what I mean. I stay away from dieselturbos etc due to the lag. And now they add another lag on top of that. Bring on electric.
            • AdamN 4y ago
              Yeah I hate turbo lag (it was awful on my old Tiguan). Start/Stop worked fine though - not once did I feel like the engine wasn't ready to go after letting go of the brake. I drive super safe these days though so it's not like I was jumping from pedal to pedal. I have an EV now (id.4) and I'm of two minds. The acceleration is awesome but the inability to do a full road trip is (mildly) limiting and the suspension/drive quality is middling at best (partly because it's an SUV, partly because of the weight).
              • sgt 4y ago
                I'm in South Africa and the country isn't exactly ready for electric cars yet, so I went for a pragmatic choice instead; Toyota Land Cruiser with huge petrol engine. Yes, it costs tons to fill up, but it's not a car you just toss away as it lasts forever. There's also something to be said about longevity when considering the environment.
    • vinay427 4y ago
      Automatic start-stop features do save a meaningful amount of fuel. This article [1] cites about 8% in heavy traffic. [1] https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/a22994303/automatic-start-stop-useful-fuel-savings/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/a229943...
      • hbarka 4y ago
        Emissions from restarting can be higher or lower than idling [1] • Idling for more than 10 seconds uses more fuel and emits more CO2 than engine restarting. • Idling fuel usage varies from 0.2 to 0.5 gal/h for passenger vehicles across a range of sizes, and increased with idling speed. • NOx and THC emissions from restarting are larger, but at least an order of magnitude lower than those from starting a cold engine. • For short stops, it makes sense to turn the vehicle off in order to minimize fuel use and CO2 emissions. At least for the conditions evaluated in this work, the penalty in terms of criteria pollutant emissions [1] https://afdc.energy.gov/files/u/publication/which_is_greener.pdf https://afdc.energy.gov/files/u/publication/which_is_greener...
  • thejackgoode 4y ago
    One argument against is that it's forbidden in many places (at least in Europe) for a car to idle on the street. It's obviously not always enforced, especially on a mailman, but the spirit of this regulation still makes sense
• Neil44 4y ago
  I guess density of housing is a big factor. Where I live they postlady parks her van centrally ish near the post box, collects that then fans out on foot delivering stuff. But some rural roads you've got a long distance between properties.
  • ricktdotorg 4y ago
    right. i live in a high-density old building with ~60 apartments. our USPS mailperson generally spends about ~20-30 mins back and forth between their truck and the wall of mailboxes in the building.
  • hbarka 4y ago
    In American suburbs where there’s a mailbox in front of every house, the mailmen will roll up to each one. They don’t even need to step off. Go to next, stop their Grumman LLV, sort the mail for that address, reach out and stuff, repeat.
• 867-5309 4y ago
  this is the recommendation from Amazon (at least) citing driver and vehicle safety close to minimum wage, the last thing you want is for your vehicle to be driven away by a thief
• jameshart 4y ago
  And every startup (or minute idling) is pushing particulate pollution out onto residential streets. People don’t appreciate the difference EVs make just by shifting the pollution burden of traffic away from the human environment.
  • djaychela 4y ago
    I really noticed how much better the air near me (in the UK) was during the first lockdown, when there really wasn't much vehicle traffic in the suburban area I live in. I go for a walk every morning, and the air was noticeably better then. As the cars started to reappear, I began to notice just how smelly they are. I now have an EV as my family's main car, and it was driven in part by this (obviously obvious!) realisation.
• roflyear 4y ago
  Well every mailbox is extreme. My mail people park and walk the neighborhood
• thehappypm 4y ago
  Starting the truck doesn’t take 20 seconds.
  • hbarka 4y ago
    Between the mailboxes isn’t merely twisting the key to start. It’s the sum of starting, removing parking brake, shifting to Drive……(…)…shifting to Park, turning off the engine, set parking brake.
• mywittyname 4y ago
  And they are loud. I can hear the mail person in my basement when they arrive each day. Their trucks sound like the mufflers fell off years ago.
  • rootusrootus 4y ago
    I think you may be under-appreciating just how loud an internal combustion engine is without mufflers. I suspect that the big issue with LLVs isn't that they are particularly loud (they are louder than a typical modern consumer-oriented car fresh from the factory, for sure, but pretty similar to other purpose-built delivery vehicles), but that they have a very distinctive tone. You hear it once a day, every day, so it becomes something your mind picks up on as a pattern.