There was once something just a little romantic, in the early years of trucking, about the roar of a diesel engine starting up, the cloud of black smoke pumping out of the chromed exhaust stack, and the steady rumble as the engine settled in to work. Those days are gone, however, disappearing with the tree-lined country roads along which such trucks used to travel.
Now, most people see red, not stars, when they look at an idling diesel truck — and a regulatory mood is stealing over the congested landscape.
Vehicle noise is already regulated almost everywhere as a public nuisance. Eleven states and two Canadian provinces also have smoke emissions statutes on the books, and three more states have smoke regulations under development. Statewide anti-idling laws are generally spreading east to west, with ten states limiting idling statewide and another eight with local idling limits also in place.
Federal clean air guidelines underpin these state and local restrictions, putting nonattainment states at risk of losing federal funding if they don't, literally, clean up their acts — and soon.
“What we are finding is that, in order to meet EPA requirements, states are searching for overlooked opportunities to reduce emissions,” says Terry Levinson, environmental systems scientist for the Energy Systems Division, Center for Transportation Research, Argonne National Laboratory.
“This means attention is finally falling on mobile sources of pollution, such as commercial trucks,” she adds. It is clear that trucks will bear a greater part of the clean air burden in the future.”
Here's a brief summary of the idling and smoke emissions regulations already in place. Virtually every state and municipality regulates vehicle noise, so noise limits are not listed here.