Linda Hervieux

Newser staff

UPDATES:

Warming your car at home? State House vote says it's okay

$128 ticket stands for Roseville man who left car running in driveway

A Roseville man is fuming after he left his car running in a driveway — and got a ticket.

"Every person warms up their car," Nick Taylor tells WDIV. "We live in Michigan!"

Taylor, 24, left the car idling unlocked at his girlfriend's house on a frigid morning last week. When he returned a few minutes later, he spied the $128 ticket for leaving a vehicle unattended. Taylor posted a photo of the ticket on his Facebook page and railed against the "dip----" Roseville police officer who left it there for "wasting the taxpayer's money." (He later "retracted" the insult.)

The post has been shared nearly 14,000 times, but Police Chief James Berlin wasn't backing down, saying you can't leave vehicles running.

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"This is purely a public safety issue," he tells Fox 2. "You see it all the time, people hop in a running car and steal them. Something bad happens when that occurs." And because of the original insult, Berlin says he's not about to tear up the ticket.

WXYZ reports there is no state law that forbids motorists from keeping the car turned on and unattended, but some Michigan cities do have local ordnances. Many rules, though, permit residents to use the remote start function because the vehicle is locked.

One footnote for those who practice Taylor's habit of warming up the car: Mechanics say the old-school ritual is no longer necessary in the era of fuel-injected engines, notes USA TODAY. In fact, today's cars tend to warm up more quickly being driven rather than idling.

WZZM contributed to this report.