Fuel Efficient Driving Habits
Posted on Dec 25, 2007 - 06:03 AM
By: Adam Beazley
Of all the things you can do to help stop pollution and global warming, changing your driving habits is one of the easiest and least expensive of them all. As with a home, it all starts with efficiency, and efficiency in a car means that we must be more efficient with our miles traveled and our time spent in the car.
Reduce Mileage:
The main way to reduce pollution is to reducing the number of vehicle miles traveled by carpooling, planning and grouping trips together, or using public transportation. If our nationwide public transportation usage would increase by just 10%, we would save over 135 million gallons of gasoline each year. That’s about 1.3 million tons of Carbon Dioxide kept from entering our atmosphere.
Slow Down & Don’t Idle:
Another commonly overlooked way of driving more efficiently is to stay at moderate, steady speeds and reduce the time your car spends idling. When you travel at higher speeds, or accelerate too fast, you will burn much more gas, thus causing more emissions to be released into our atmosphere. Also, by idling for over 1 minute, you are burning more gas than it takes to restart your car. With that being said, you should avoid keeping your car on in the drive-through or when waiting in your car.
Maintenance Is Key:
Keeping vehicles properly maintained and in great running condition is another huge factor in emission reduction. Poorly maintained or malfunctioning vehicles can release as much as 10 times the emissions of a well-maintained one. Regular maintenance such as oil changes, air filter changes and even inflating the tires will keep your vehicle as efficient as possible.
Use Clean Fuels:
Using clean fuels whenever possible is also a great way to reduce your emissions. Clean fuels include, alternative fuels such as biodiesel, ethanol, natural gas and even reformulated and oxygenated gasoline. These reformatted and oxygenated gasoline’s can reduce toxic emissions by over 15%. Some places will not have these gasoline’s available to them, however there are many places where these gasoline’s are federally mandated and are usually sold during the colder months.
Buy Fuel Efficient Vehicles:
Of course the best think you can do to help curb pollution aside from not driving at all, is to buy a vehicle with good fuel economy. These generally include smaller cars, diesel trucks, hybrid vehicles and alternatively fueled vehicles. When buying a car, the following link is a great resource to compare and contrast different vehicles: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm
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Show/Hide Comments (1)
By Pink Scooter on 08/01/2008
Maintenance is where most people fail. They just drive and drive without taking care of their vehicles.
