Print This Post Print This Post

Sep

22

Ecodriving – if I can do it, you can do it


I’m not known for being the most wasteful person, but I’m also not nearly as conscientious as I should be, and certainly not as conscientious as, if I had to estimate, most of the people I know.

So it’s not surprising to think that I’m dead center of efforts to do better in matters of ecology, economy, energy and environment: I’m politically engaged and I have kids who will hopefully model good behavior (never bad, of course). One such effort that recently made its debut is Ecodrivingusa.com. Given the fact that, just today, a barrel of oil just went from $130 (a $25 dollar jump just today), the matter of reducing how much gas I need to run my car is no roll-your-eye matter.  I shlep, a lot and that means I pay, a lot.  I’m getting better at carpooling but that’s just not enough, when you just know that there is so much more that any one of us could be doing.

Some folks that have already written about ecodriving include the California blog, Calitics (which juxtaposes how John McCain made fun of Barack Obama’s suggestion about checking your tires air pressure only to have the governator himself suggest the very same).  You can also read what the sponsors of ecodrivingusa.com (Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers) have to say at a special post they did at Think Progress.  Here’s an excerpt:

Ecodriving is a public education and awareness initiative aimed at providing consumers with tips to show how regular vehicle maintenance combined with simple changes in driving habits can lead to significant improvements in fuel economy and reductions in automobile carbon dioxide emissions. Ecodriving is practiced in other parts of the world and is proven to provide fuel economy improvements as much as 15 to 20 percent. With gas prices at record highs and growing concern over climate change, ecodriving provides direct pocketbook benefits to consumers, and give them tools to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. [emphasis in original]

Now, I learned about this site from a young, hip friend of mine involved in the launch – and if it wasn’t for her, it would very well be something I’d click past.  Bad, bad, bad, I know.  This is why I feel so lucky that a few cool people from the younger generations have taken pity on me.

But the reality is that I’ve now passed the ecodriving site on to the Mr. Fix-it in my household who maintains the cars. The site is extremely viewer and user-friendly, has fun gadgets on the site (a virtual road test and an ecocalculator ) that help you figure out what you are (and are not) contributing to, and a state and local action outline, including a letter you can send to the governor asking that your state get involved in ecodriving.

And, as I think about the effort, I think: the automakers would much prefer that we keep buying cars than not buying them at all.  So, to the extent that we can be made to feel that they aren’t killing our budgets, us or the world around us, if we become ecodrivers, they get to play for time longer, as alternative fuel sources and more ecologically and economically desirable modes of travel develop.  I’ll never forget learning in fifth grade social studies: our resources are finite.

By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:08 pm September 22nd, 2008 in Energy, Environment, Politics, Resources, Science, Tech, Transportation 

Comments

7 Responses to “Ecodriving – if I can do it, you can do it”

  1. 1 Carole Cohen on September 23rd, 2008 8:11 am

    I could have done 116 pts better and yes it was based on tire pressure which I admit I don’t check often enough (of course I wasn’t able to filter in a three month period of no driving but using the bus so I’m thinking that helped close the gap lol. Cool site! I just passed it on to a few friends.

  2. 2 Oengus on September 23rd, 2008 9:02 pm

    Cute…if it was only that simple.

    What’s really odd about people is that they will not take the initiative unless the neighbor makes them feel guilty for not, then that can have a counter affect. I think that’s the “you are not the boss of me” complex.

    I want to live close to trains and I do, but it is tough to find employment that way. That being I want to use the train to get to work, but that’s not a search criteria, does that make sense? I am not getting email alerts telling me that we found a job that you could take the train to get to.

    I do not expect everyone to take the train, but really think that the transit authority is not as great as they think they are…or as they could be.

    I like the gentleman that is seeking RD capital, the what was it a tube train? But if we look at rail in Cuyahoga county, that being if you could see what I see, you might realize that land on the rails or more accurately around the stations is not developed optimally.

    That is a systemic problem, it’s because funding for transportation is done with excise taxes on petroleum and relegated to roads. The funding for public transportation is funded through sales taxes in the county. Logic would say tax the fuel and build the alternative at least for those interested, that would reduce consumption of the fuel because as people changed to driving less the supply would go up and the price would fall. There is other factors as well like wear and tear on roads, lightening up the vehicle or getting as many heavy truck off as many roads as possible, that saves on the costs of resurfacing.

    The problem is systemic because of different agencies with different funding and then all the special interests that come along for the ride. It is or should be obvious that excise taxes should be raking in capital as of late…considering that we could have had an excise tax that was fifty cents a gallon ten years ago and put the money into public transportation with less of a price per gallon than we have today…we will wait until what?

    There are limits and they are on the horizon, I care little about public opinion people are challenged, the education is not there. You say look this is what they know and it is alarmingly little and then look this is what they think and it dictates the outcomes of events?

    Do not fall for the panacea, what is systemic and what is societal and behavioral. When it is systemic it’s the process and that is consistent, when it can be or may be happening it’s behavioral when it is monkey see monkey do it becomes societal.

  3. 3 Jill Miller Zimon on September 23rd, 2008 9:22 pm

    I definitely don’t disagree with all that much of your comment, Oengus but I think the results that such an effort can achieve are worth seeing just how much we can bend, and in bending, model for other people.

    But no – it’s not so simple. You are right.

  4. 4 Oengus on September 24th, 2008 9:44 am

    How does that work out? Would the role model inspire a poor man to want a Cadillac?
    We are not adjusting this time around last time we stopped lighting the buildings and all the auto manufactures introduced four cylinder cars.

    We have these people that seem to think that using CNG or electric cars is a solution, look what ethanol did to the price of corn and then to the price of beef and milk….

    Then these alternatives will be what 50K-60K each, the price of living is going up…bend? We will demand higher pay and be way more ruthless about keeping the competition at bay, work 60 hours a week before we will hire a person that would do the job for less and maybe even better?

    I see a woman making 75K complaining about the man making 100K the poor African America does not admire them but they do model after them they want a Lexus also….many do not want to live in your neighborhood because the schools are so much better funded, it is because they know it pisses you off.

    The sub prime is there it is around you, its all about keeping up with the Jones and that’s societal the fact that we created financial vehicles to allow them to fake it up is systemic.

    If I was to take inner city kids on a field trip, it would not be to wealthy suburbia it would be to visit the Amish… seriously. I would say look they make there own cloths and grow their own food. Now lets ask these people if they own a pair of dolce and gabbanna sunglasses?

    Maybe we need to rethink what is an admirable role model?

    The government jumps in when they fall apart, the commodities will never fall apart they are going to keep inflating, did anyone use the home equity loan to make the home more energy efficient. The obligations go beyond a mortgage and insurance and taxes, it also get into the costs of the commodities to sustain it. The alternatives will raise the bar and still deplete the resources. That has little to do with public opinion more to do with physics. It does not matter what you think it is what it is.

    What screws up a market economy, greed and ignorance, half the country wakes up thinking of way to f*** the other half.

  5. 5 the good old days » Blog Archive » Have you REALLY tried… on September 24th, 2008 2:09 pm

    [...] borrowed from the New Hampshire State Library collections. EcodrivingUSA.com link from Writes Like She Talks. Weird synergy of sources — that’s all [...]

  6. 6 Liz Micik on September 25th, 2008 10:45 am

    Ecodriving is now supposed to be a higher standard to aspire to?? OK, so it is, but the way we got here bothers me a lot.

    A couple of months ago, AAA blasted the grassroots movement and the term they used to describe their driving (coined by Wayne Gerdes) which was hypermiling. It was painted as an evil, dangerous thing. But now the sanitized term “ecodriving” which essentially is the beginner’s version of hypermiling is supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

    Yes, I too am practicing gas conserving driving methods and recommend them to my mailing list and blog readers. No, I don’t recommend bashing something just so you can reclaim it as your own invention. And no, I won’t call it ecodriving because that would be endorsing the smear campaign of Gerdes and his followers that was used to “claim the market space by claiming the name.”

  7. 7 Jill Miller Zimon on September 25th, 2008 10:52 am

    Liz – first – I really appreciate you reading and commenting.

    Obviously, you know way more about all this than I do – certainly from the movement perspective.

    I don’t mean to suggest that you should or can teach us what we (or I!) don’t know, but are you saying that there are groups that are competing for…authority or something on this issue?

    I’m definitely looking at these suggestions as a consumer, and confess to being more or less detached from the battles that might be brewing or waged behind the suggestions – maybe that’s not something I should be admitting or proud of (not that I am), but what exactly are you concerned about?

    Are you suggesting that the AAM has hijacked something that was poo-poo’ed before and that’s what should get in our craw? I think I could understand that – I just don’t know the history as it seems you do (and I did visit the site you left as your link – thank you).

    Hope you’ll come back and say more.

Leave a Reply




"));