How green do we really want to be with gasoline?

Do we really, truly care about conserving gasoline, water, electricity? How serious are we about recycling? Are we as green as we want to be? Are we as green as we think we are?

This is a continuing series into the exploration of just how concerned we are about caring for our environment when it comes to our personal comforts.

We toss a few items into the recycle bin, our conscience is tested at the grocery store when asked “paper or plastic?”, we trade our incandescent light bulbs for energy efficient compact fluorescent lightbulbs, yet we buy our water in non-degradable plastic bottles by the caseload. We fool ourselves into thinking we are environmentally friendly and that we take energy conservation seriously and then, daily, we participate in the most egregious, blatant, resource-wasting activity we know. We drive our cars and trucks in the same manner as we did before the words fuel and shortage were ever uttered in the same sentence.

This one area of our daily lives has the greatest potential for being a major turning point in the battle against global warming and yet we refuse to take that step.

Sure, automobile manufacturers and a handful of private citizens are devising ways to make cars more fuel efficient but that is only because the federal government and certain market conditions are forcing them to. We Americans, on the whole, are fighting it tooth and nail. We continue to purchase the latest ‘big and powerful’, whether it be a car or truck instead of going for small and fuel-efficient. We expect auto manufacturers to come up with ways to allow us to keep our ‘American Muscle’ so we can drive at top speed (and to get to top speed quicker than ever before) while simply giving the appearance of doing our part to help conserve our dwindling oil supply. And our federal government puts on a dog and pony show of pretending to be environmentally friendly, by passing legislation worded in such a way as to allow auto manufacturers to continue to produce the very same ‘big and powerful’ gas guzzling, heavy-weight vehicles they always have.

We hear a lot of talk about the rising cost of fuel and each time those prices increase we begin hearing speculation of how someday these higher fuel prices will affect our driving habits and force us to conserve. Well, from what I have witnessed so far on our nations roadways, very little has changed, with one exception, the oil companies are reaping record-breaking profits. I am not an economics major, but even I understand the law of supply and demand. Our demand is increasing, therefore, the prices increase. As though sheer numbers is not enough to increase demand, our selfish driving habits increase the demand.

The price of oil just recently broke the $100 a barrel barrier. Was that enough to change our driving habits? No. You may ask why does the price continue to go up? Is there a fuel shortage that forces these prices up? No. The oil companies see that we are not going to change our driving habits therefore nothing compels them to not raise prices. Truly everyone can understand that if we stopped driving altogether then the price of oil would take a drastic nosedive resulting in gasoline so cheap they couldn’t give it away. And yet we continue on our merry way speeding down the freeway, needlessly passing everything on the road, hurrying to where we are going, guzzling excessive amounts of fuel to have the latest biggest and most powerful vehicles, because it has become a habit.

It has also become a habit to complain about the higher prices, yet we refuse to do our part to keep prices low. We have the power to dictate lower prices at the pump. Don’t believe me? Then read the following list of habits that will illustrate our wastefulness and help explain my logic.

Excessive idling
Millions of Americans, every cold wintry morning, start their cars and leave them to idle for 5, 10, 20, up to 30 minutes in their driveway while they stay inside in the warmth of the house because we all want to ride in a comfortably warm car. We allow our vehicles to idle in fast food drive-thru lanes. We allow our vehicles to idle at the curbside while we run into the store ‘just for a minute’. We adopt the mindset that, oh, it is only costing me a few pennies, if we bother to think about it at all. Yet not a single thought is given to how much fuel it is taking away from the rest of us. We are oblivious to how much extra pollution we are putting into the air by letting that car unnecessarily idle, and we are obviously more concerned with our personal comfort than we are in the price of gasoline.

Hard acceleration
After idling your car in the driveway for your personal comfort, you drive off to your destination. Do you slowly get up to speed or do you hard-accelerate to get up to and over the speed limit as quickly as you can? Do you follow this same pattern of hard-acceleration from every stop sign, from every red light, around every car that is moving slower than you want to drive? I see all of these things taking place every day. I see my neighbor pull out of her driveway and take off like she is trying to set some land speed record to get to the next stop sign. Everyday! Clearly, this is nothing more than a habit. Why does she drive like this? I see guys do this too, so don’t think I am being sexist by singling her out. Do you know how much gas could be saved by gently accelerating to and driving at the posted 25 mph speed limit on our residential street? Multiply that savings by driving more conservatively on every street. How many people do you know actually drive the posted speed limit? If you know of any, I’ll bet you could count them on one hand. I drive the speed limit and I am constantly harassed by impatient drivers who don’t like having to slow down to the speed limit. And these drivers represent every age group and both sexes.

Excessive speed
Once you get on the road to wherever you are going, do you move along with the traffic flow or do you feel this blind, impassioned need to pass everyone as if they and you are in a race to get to the finish line first? They are not going to the same place that you are, so why do you have to pass them? I see drivers who seemingly feel they cannot stand to be behind anyone. Do they think everyone will be impressed with how fast their car can go? Zoom, zoom, zoom! Speed limits are widely viewed as suggestions. In every community I have ever driven in, people drive over the posted speed limit. By simply modifying our behavior to drive the speed limit, to obey this law that we have already paid people to determine what the safest speed should be, could save millions of gallons of fuel per year which would result in lower gas prices due to lesser demand and save more gas for all of us in the long run.

I see a car in my rearview mirror speeding up to me and I think where does this guy have to get to in such a hurry. He passes me, zooms on ahead and a few seconds later we are both sitting at the same traffic light. What did he gain by getting to that traffic light first? How much more, in fuel and money, did it cost him to get to that traffic light than it cost me? That little extra amount of gas that he burned up in getting to that traffic light ahead of me, compounded by the millions of drivers who do this everyday amounts to a lot of wasted gasoline. Gasoline that could, if saved for future use, allow all of the rest of us to drive a little bit further if we could only have it available to us. But for his personal, foolish pleasure, the rest of us won’t be able to drive that little bit further. Driving more conservatively in this instance would decrease gasoline demand and therefore decrease gasoline prices.

Combine trips
Driving to the grocery store several times a week compared to just once a week wastes a lot of gasoline too. We have all heard the urging to consolidate our trips yet how many people actually put this into practice? How many times have you made a ‘quick’ run to store just pick up a few items? Make lists, make meal plans, plan your trips more wisely. These little things all add up.

Mass transit and carpooling
Car pool lanes and mass transit were sold to us as means of easing traffic jams and saving fuel. Yet how many people actually use these properly? Very few. My community shares a commuter bus line with other neighboring communities to get residents from outlying areas to the main bus and train lines. At the end of this month that service is being cancelled due to lack of ridership. After more than one year of operation, each of the previous seven months has shown a total daily ridership of three. Does this show that mass transit is working? Certainly not in this city. This story is repeated across this country. People just do not want to give up their personal vehicles. They do not want to have to walk even two blocks to get to and from their place of employment or shopping. On the flip side, mass transit does not get most people close enough to their places of employment to make it a useable solution. Around the world, mass transit systems are in decline while operating costs continue to increase. Our tax dollars continue to be thrown at a broken system that not enough people want to use. Mass transits answer: ‘more modern, attractive public transit systems’. It’s good business for bus and train manufacturers, it keeps some people employed, but it does nothing to serve its original purpose.

Carpool lanes are abused as means of passing slower traffic. Additional revenue is raised by municipalities through charging for HOV passes that allow single occupant vehicles to drive in these lanes, because the original concept, of forcing people to ride-share to decrease the number of vehicles on the road, has not been realized. Again, because we don’t want to leave our personal vehicles sitting at home and because we don’t want to walk a few extra blocks. We shun public transportation because our own personal comfort outweighs the good it would do for our environment.

Tire pressure and routine maintenance
Other gas saving strategies that are overlooked is tire pressure and routine maintenance. How many people actually check their car’s tire pressure? Keeping all four tires properly pressurized can mean pennies in savings but they add up. Keeping your vehicle properly tuned and oil changed regularly really do add up to savings.

Driving the speed limit can mean pennies in savings. Gradually accelerating to the speed limit can save pennies. Consolidating trips can save pennies. All of these pennies can collectively add up to an unbelievable savings in the fuel supply and in the amount of money we pay at the gas pump. Have you ever tossed your loose change in a drawer or jar every time you come in the house and one day count it only to be surprised at how much you have collected? Think of changing your driving habits, saving pennies here and there, as a savings account. Only this savings affects everyone else on the road too.

It just seems to me that most people are mindlessly driving everywhere they go, which, basically, defines a habit. We need to be more conscious of how every aspect of our driving affects the amount of gas we use to get from point A to point B. Do we really have to beat everyone to the next traffic light? Do we really have to be out in front of everyone on the freeway? Do we really have to take our personal vehicle with us everywhere we go?

There is a whole field of psychology behind why people drive the way they do, and why they cherish their personal vehicles so much over the environment, and these issues are beyond the scope of the post, but come on people, what is the rush? Do we really have the right to complain of high gas prices while at the same time sustaining those high gas prices?

The bottom line is that extreme driving habits is taking fuel away from the rest of us. And it is keeping fuel prices up, for all of us!

So, are we really trying to be environmentally friendly and are we taking energy conservation seriously or are we too stubborn to give up old habits?

It seems personal comfort trumps the environment.

This is part of a continuing series that explores just how dedicated we are to saving our planet and ourselves from our polluting and energy-wasting ways.

Come back for the next installment when I explore the sham of recycling.

And, as always, please feel free to leave comments.

Resources:
Edmunds.com performed these tests and published their results here.

Daily Fuel Economy Tips
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