The summer driving season is soon coming to a close, but there are many drives to school, the store, the bank, your family visits, and other destinations. Here is some advice that will help you save money on gasoline use, and keep the air cleaner and healthier.
First, don’t take your car. Use public transportation. If you do drive ride with a friend or pick them up and drive together.
Second, combine errands into one trip. If you are driving to the grocery store you can stop at many places on the way; the bank, the library, and so forth.
Third, keep up with suggested vehicle maintenance. Change your oil and filter at the recommended mileage points. Most importantly keep your tires inflated to the maximum recommended pressure.
Fourth, don’t leave unneeded heavy items in the car such as: tools, landscape materials, items to be dropped off at some ones home when you get the chance.
Fifth, Watch the way you drive. Avoid quick starts and stops. Accelerate slowly and leave enough space between you and the car in front of you so you can coast up to them braking softly as you approach them. On the highway drive at the posted speed limit. Most cars get their most efficient mileage at about 50 mph. As your speed increases past 50 mph you get fewer miles per gallon. Your car’s cruise control will help you maintain a constant speed with no speeding up or gas consuming speed changes.
Sixth, when driving in town roll down the windows to keep cool, except on very hot days. When you are on the highway going at least 45 mph roll up all the windows and turn on the air conditioning.
Finally, don’t idle! If you are waiting at a bank, at a pharmacy, a fast food drive up window, or in the school parking lot turn your engine off. If you are not going to be moving for 10 seconds or longer you should turn off the engine. This is because the amount of gasoline that you burn in 10 seconds is the amount of gas that it takes to restart your engine. In general if you idle for a total of 15 minutes you have used up one dollar’s worth of gasoline, not to mention all the extra harmful air pollution you have put into the atmosphere.
If you follow these tips you will save money by needing to buy less gasoline. You will be putting fewer climate altering gases into the atmosphere. You will be limiting the amount of pollutants that institute and aggravate asthma attacks.
In the future, when you buy a new car look at the mpg on comparable vehicles and pick one that gets better mileage than the one you are driving now. Vehicles are now getting better gas mileage every year.
