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Eco-Driving: Save Fuel While Driving
5 Comments | Posted by gimme-five in Environment, Money
Just read an interesting article about Eco-Driving in the Independent. Eco-driving basically just means changing your driving habits in order to maximize fuel economy. Some of these ideas are very easy to do, whereas others require a very dedicated person. I’ll summarize them for your enjoyment.
- Try to take public transit, walk, bike, or share a ride.
- If possible, obviously this is the best way you can save gasoline. However, it’s not possible for everyone.
- Plan your route to be as direct as possible.
- Try to drive during off-peak hours (i.e. go in to work earlier or later than the average person does)
- Service your vehicle regularly
- This can affect fuel economy by about 10%.
- Oil changes, tune ups, etcetera.
- Keep tire pressures at recommended levels.
- This tip will also keep you safer and reduce wear on your tires.
- Don’t drive too fast on long trips – incredibly fast speeds can really reduce fuel economy.
- Apparently coasting doesn’t save much fuel on modern cars.
- Don’t keep extra stuff sitting around in your car
- Don’t keep a roof rack on your car if you’re not carrying anything.
- If you’re stuck at a light or in traffic for a while (longer than a minute) turn off your engine.
- Drive gradually – don’t accelerate as you approach a red light – don’t go from accelerator to brake right away, just roll to a stop.
By following these tips you can save money AND help out the environment. Obviously some of them are pretty tough to follow, but most of these are pretty easy to do and are not a bad idea at all.
5 Comments for Eco-Driving: Save Fuel While Driving
Shaniqua | June 6, 2006 at 9:18 am
Author comment by george | June 6, 2006 at 9:39 am
How about this — Keep track of a week’s mileage, a month’s average and commit to reduce your mileage by 10% to see if it’s doable as personal experiment. Just keep a notepad in the car, and track it daily.
That’s actually a really good idea. If I drove more (luckily I don’t drive much at all with the exception of when I drive to school) I would definitely keep track of this on gimme-five. If anyone wanted to do this and keep everyone updated every month on here let me know via email: george AT gimme-five.
I’d support an employer/employee tax reformulation based on distance from workplace to incentivize telecommuting
This is also actually a really good idea that I would fully support. Although I don’t know if this would happen at the federal level, local governments could implement something like this, since usually they are the ones funding a lot of public transit anyhow.
Waco Kid | June 6, 2006 at 9:47 am
I think you are starting to see much of that being done.
Many companies in the DC area are starting to move outside the beltway to new hubs (tysons, reston, fairfax). In fact much of the current uproar over Vienna’s new mini-city is about this type of phenomena.
Employees don’t exactly enjoy commuting and so it make sense for both the firm (office space is cheaper) and the individual (less time commuting).
If you were going to make any major regulatory push (which i’m not advocating) it should be for employers to eliminate paid parking passes if they are in a big city. Instead they should subsidize metro checks or the equivalent public transport. Many firms do both but if they were to move to public transport it would increase its use.
Waco Kid | June 6, 2006 at 9:52 am
Telecommuting results in certain problems at the govt level. Mainly security concerns whether they are defense related or economic related. While these are obviously not insurmountable barriers they do explain in part why their hasn’t been such a mass migration to e-working.
Shaniqua | June 6, 2006 at 10:29 am
If you were going to make any major regulatory push (which i’m not advocating) it should be for employers to eliminate paid parking passes if they are in a big city. Instead they should subsidize metro checks or the equivalent public transport. Many firms do both but if they were to move to public transport it would increase its use.
The problem with taxation (as a social engineering tool) and entitlements is that they become entrenched. If I was a founding father I’d have to insist that each tax would need sunsetting on a set schedule — not as currently executed but all programs would need to kept from expanding beyond a specific social goal. Defunded to zero if appropriate.
Firms providing allowances/subsidies would not cut it unless there was an overarching federal tax levy and what they were doing is offsetting for credit against the specific levy on a dollar for dollar basis (not subject to writeoffs). Depending on altruistic behavior by corporations is naive and destructive. Doing it at the state level is asking to game the system.
OTOH, when employees get used to the public transit subsidy it becomes an entitlement rather than what it should be – a tool to correct short term behavior with no expectation of long term longevity beyond a specifically stated period — say five years. Sounds like a socialist five year plan but the intent is to motivate a behavior trend and regulate commons use. This would also keep the corporations from gaming the system and would keep workers (citizens) from developing an entitlement mindset.
Most people don’t even keep track of the mileage unless they’re compelled to do it by the price fluctuations (which is another discussion altogether).
How about this — Keep track of a week’s mileage, a month’s average and commit to reduce your mileage by 10% to see if it’s doable as personal experiment. Just keep a notepad in the car, and track it daily.
I’ll bet that if track your daily traffic patterns actively, you can reduce the pattern without significantly altering your lifestyle. If you’re willing to actually alter your lifestyle you can change your traffic patterns dramatically.
I’d support an employer/employee tax reformulation based on distance from workplace to incentivize telecommuting (home-office work). For example if you live within 5 miles of your workplace, no tax to either employer or employee, over 5 miles, use a graduated formula to determine the added cost. Give tax credit back to employees/employers if they demonstrate public transit or pedal power.
Several things would result from this:
1. People would reconsider the benefit of 60 mile commutes if the cost was shifted.
2. Employers would hire personnel closer to their infrastructure locations or would spread themselves out from the current strip mall/industrial park concept into microcommunities.
3. Employers would subsidize micro community infrastructure development taking the infrastructure further upstream to the home communities away from technology centers (large tracts of paved areas such as the SF-San Jose concrete pad or the Boston-DC concrete pad).
4. Use the tax proceeds to specifically earmark development of near-area/local public transit.