lowimpacthome.org

For those of you that follow my blog you will remember that I was trying to go all summer without turing on my air conditioner in my car…well I did it!

It ment there were a few close calls when I had to run out into an inpending storm to roll up my windows, and there was the time that I knew it was going to rain but I was dumb and only rolled up the drivers side windows so everything on the passenger side was soaked.  It also ment on those 100 degree days that I broke a sweat just sitting in my car on my 8 minute drive home, but I made it and the benefits were great!

Before when I used the a/c I would only get an average of 25mpgs without the a/c I averaged 32mpgs, in fact my miles per gallon went up so much that one week I even got 34mpgs.  So out of every tank I was able to get an extra 70 miles.  With my daily round trip being 16 miles that meant I was able to get appromimately 4 more trips to work, so instead of filling up once a week I started filling up once everyother week.

Now I know that I changed a couple other driving habits that also helped in the consumption of fuel.  I stopped running yellow lights, well tried to at least.  When I light would turn yellow I wouldn’t floor it to make it through and gently pushed on the break and coasted to a stop.  I also tried not to travel over 40 unless I was on the highway and then I would only go 55.  To me this was the hardest thing to do because I have a lead foot.  Normally on the highway I would be pushing 80 and on the streets 55 weaving in and out of traffic.  But as I watched my gas meter plummet on those days that I was in a hurry and decided to exceed the speed limit, I realized that it wasn’t worth it.  Not only was I setting myself up to get a ticket, I was also wasting precious resources…my money and the nation’s petroleum reserves.

I recently went to get my oil change and after spending $45 for 4 quarts of oil and a filter (OMG!) with oil prices like that we need to change the way we are thinking about our driving habits.  Can you shorten your commute?  Can you share a ride with someone in your office?  Can you bring your lunch to work so you don’t have to go somewhere and eat?  Can you push the accelerator gently and ease up on your lead foot?  All these things make a difference in the amount of gas we use, take a minute to figure out what you can do to help ease the oil crisis.

With gas prices on the rise, I have been doing everything I can to keep my tank above empty for as long as possible.  But I don’t know that I can go as far as some of the “Hyper-Milers” are going.  Keep you windows rolled up and no AC when its 98 degrees outside.  Umm no, I don’t have a death wish.

I do have it quite easy when it comes to how far things are away from my home.  Like my commute is 8 minutes long.  For all of you that spend hours in rush hour traffic, my heart goes out to you.  I did that for 3 weeks, it took me 45 minutes to get from home to work and longer on the way home, and boy did that suck!  The best part about living so close to work is the additional time to sleep and that on most days I can go home for lunch and not spend $10 to eat out.

Not only do I work with in 5 miles but the grocery store, elementary and junior high are all within a mile of my home.  Who said urban sprawl was all that terrible?  The burb that I live in has everything that I could ever need, a Starbucks included, withing a couple miles of my front door.

But back to the 32 mpg’s…since I only spend 8 minutes in the car, I don’t believe it necessary to turn the car’s a/c on but I do roll down the windows (all the way).  The hype-milers suggest that you only crack your windows because anymore and the amount of drag increases, to hell with that!  What I know is when I run my a/c, I get the listed mpg’s about 25 to 27 miles to the gallon, but when I turn off the a/c and roll down the windows I get 30 to 32 miles a gallon.  I’ve done the math and that’s an additional 12 or so percent more miles every time I fill up.  All I can say is that I am amazed!

So my suggestion…roll down the windows, turn up your Public Radio station (I’m convinced that NPR helps save on gas too) and take off to work.  I’m not going to try to do the math on what kinds of cost savings that would be for the country if everyone got 12% more miles to the gallon, but think of what it could do for your bottom line as well as our dependency on foreign oil.  So grab your stainless steel bottle of tap water and head out into the wide open spaces!