Cars are an essential part of life for most people in the western world, yet if you’re environmentally conscious, you’ve probably spent a lot of time thinking about pollution, emissions, and fuel usage.
Sadly, the car that you drive has a huge impact on the amount of fuel that you use – but that doesn’t mean that you have to sell your car and buy something smaller (or electric) if you want to reduce your carbon footprint. The following simple tips for greener motoring can all help you to reduce your fuel usage:
- Service your car frequently: This will help you to keep your car running at maximum efficiency.
- Check your oil: When you change the oil, use the right specification for your car.
- Check your tyres: Correctly inflated tyres are safer than under-inflated ones, and also use less fuel.
- Clean your car: Those books you left in the boot from the last car boot sale weigh a lot, and will be using extra fuel!
- Take off the roof rack: boxes and roof racks add wind resistance – if you’re not using them, take them off.
- Watch your gear changes: Change up at around 2,500RPM in a petrol car, or 2,000 in a diesel car.
- Decelerate smoothly: release the accelerator and leave the car in gear rather than lurching to a halt.
- Don’t idle if you don’t have to: Stop the engine if you think you’ll be sitting still for more than a couple of minutes.
- Warm up on the move: Instead of leaving the car idling to melt ice in the winter, scrape it off by hand and don’t start the engine until you’re ready to move. The engine will warm up more quickly while you’re moving, anyway.
- Slow down: higher speeds use more fuel, so stick to the speed limits – you’ll save the planet, and avoid speeding fines!
As a nation, the UK is becoming more environmentally conscious – in 2010 there were 31,035,791 cars on the roads – that’s a lot of car registration numbers to come up with! That figure was a drop of 0.7 percent compared to the previous year, so some people have been opting to reduce their car usage, perhaps going from a two car family to a single car, or using a scooter or a bike instead of a gas-guzzling motor vehicle. Imagine if all of those car owners were to drive a little lighter, and a little more wisely. The collective reduction in emissions would be huge.
If your car is in one of the higher emissions bands, then you may feel that the above measures don’t go far enough, and that changing to a lower emissions vehicle would be a better idea. For most people, though, simply changing the way you drive is enough to save a sizable amount of money in fuel costs (some people have reported savings of more than £200 per year just through altering their habits).
This article was written by Amy Fowler on behalf of The Plate Market, who offer unique and interesting car registration numbers.
Photo Credit: Some rights reserved by John Tarantino – The Environmental Blog
