Tips for Greener Travel
Prior to travel – what you can do
- Perhaps selling your car would be a good idea – public transport needs support! It’s no good complaining about services not being good enough, we must to demonstrate a consistent need for public transport in order to show the government and business that it is something worth investing in to improve.
- If you’re going on a short journey that’s 5-10 minutes down the road, walk or take a bicycle there, don’t drive. Firstly it’s incredibly lazy. Secondly while you may have concerns about how ‘safe’ it is to walk down the street, consider how safe it would be if everyone did this! If everyone was on the street walking around, then the feeling of potential threat would be lessened.
- Plan your journey carefully, listening to traffic news. If you live in London, use the TFL website (www.tfl.gov.uk) to see the situation on the roads, rail, DLR and river.
- If you have heavy objects in the boot that you don’t really need to be transporting everywhere you go – take them out! The extra weight will require more petrol to power, raising your fuel usage levels.
- Something that many people forget to do because they do not realise the potential benefit is to check their tyre pressure – if not at optimal levels the extra effort needed to move on those under-inflated tyres will be borne out in the amount of extra petrol consumed to compensate.
During travel – while you’re at the wheel
- Drive smoothly and efficiently, try to avoid fast acceleration or sudden braking as this uses more fuel.
- Driving slowly and making full use of your gears (going all the way to 5th instead of lingering in 4th while at speed for example) will help to minimise fuel consumption.
- If you’re sat in a jam going nowhere, turn your engine off. More and more cars have this auto-off feature which shuts down the engine when at standstill and starts up as soon as the accelerator is de-pressed.
- Regularly check your car’s oil levels, water levels, condition of tyres etc to ensure that there is nothing causing your car to spend unnecessary amounts of fuel.
- If it’s a cold day, turn off your air conditioning! Even on a hot day, simply lowering the windows and allowing the wind to act as a coolant will save you petrol.
- Keep an eye on your fuel consumption levels – any major fluctuation and you should go to your local garage to get things checked out as there may be a fault with the engine.
When buying a new car – what to do/look for
- Consider the possibility of car-sharing. If you’re living with someone you work near or are in a family that has more than one driver, you may be able to work out a sort of schedule that allows you to drive each other to work and share a single car. One car per family might well be enough!
- If you’re buying a new car, buy a new one as manufacturers are making them more and more environmentally friendly with better mpg statistics and less pollution than older models.
- Try to go for a smaller car – this will leave the roads less clogged up by lumbering behemoths and they are generally more fuel efficient.
Improvements in the car industry
- Back in the 1930s cars would feature 25 miles per gallon and a top speed of 60mph. Nowadays, with LPG becoming much more prevalent and advances in diesel engine technology, you can achieve 60 or 70 miles per gallon.