Green Driving Tips

Video Transcript

"How to drive green. You know, we never used to think about this, but with gas prices so expensive these days and all this focus on emissions and global warming, there's an increased interest in how to drive green. It's something you control just by the actions you take every day. We're gonna tell you about it here. Let's go. Most of us are guilty of this; quick starts, quick stops. You just want to get on your way. But, you know that costs us a lot of gas. It also creates a lot of emissions that don't need to be created. If you use even accelerated pressure from the start when you're driving, you could actually save a lot of gas. If you do estimates, driving conservatively could save up to a dollar a gallon. And that's worth the money. In fact, it's more savings than you can imagine according to the Environmental Protection Agency. If you can drive conservatively around town, you'll save maybe five percent fuel efficiency. But it's gonna be magnified at highway speeds where the engine is less efficient. You'll save up to a third of the fuel costs by driving conservatively on the highway. Part of that means, not just a steady speed which you can do on your own, or by using cruise control. Or by using overdrive gear, so you're using less fuel or your engine is at a lesser speed at the same miles per gallon. But also watching your miles per hour. If you're going sixty miles per hour, you're driving at a speed already that's not necessarily that efficient. Every time you increase by five, you're losing fuel efficiency and probably costing twenty cents per gallon more for every five miles you're doing over sixty miles per hour. The more weight you carry, the more your fuel cost suffers. You can't do anything about passengers because you're going to carry as many passengers as you need to carry at a given time. But gear's another matter. A lot of people have a lot of extra gear stashed in the trunk and if that weighs much at all considering some bowling balls, consider materials, additional materials, all that adds up. You lose fuel efficiency. So the tip here is leave it at home unless you really need it. Another way to save fuel and drive green is to combine trips. One thing to think about is when your car is cold, you start out, you have a greater role of emissions and your fuel economy suffers. A car is better once it's warmed up. But if you're doing individual trips throughout the day, you're starting out with a cold engine each and every time. So, try sequential trips. A little bit of planning, you'll find you're going from one place to another, to another, and you not only save time that way by better planning, but you save a lot more in emissions and you also save fuel economy. Whenever you can, avoid idling. First of all, you're getting zero miles per gallon by just sitting somewhere idling. Also, you're producing a lot of emissions that you really shouldn't be producing. And a warning, don't drive aggressively. It can be fun to do fast starts, quick stops, but it will cost in fuel economy and uses a lot of emissions."