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Energy Efficient Driving

Are you a Driver?

Save Money and be more Energy Efficient with your Driving.

You could save money and reduce your impact on the environment by adopting more eco friendly driving practices and better journey planning, advises the RAC. Poor route planning and driving wastes the equivalent of more than 5bn miles, or enough fuel to fill 267 Olympic swimming pools.

Cash boosting tip
Simple greener driving measures could save you up to £100 a year. They include

• keeping your tyres pumped up to the correct pressure
• switching off the air conditioning and open the windows,
• driving more slowly and avoiding sharp braking,
• do not accelerate hard

When it comes to being greener, it's not just what you drive but how you drive. Of course the greenest car is the one that's left at home. If you have to use your car, you can help by driving more efficiently. With 'eco driving' your car will produce less carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas that contributes to climate change.

More efficient driving is also more economic - you could save a substantial amount a year in petrol or diesel. It's very easy to get into greener driving habits. Just follow the steps below to enable you to save money on fuel and reduce your car's impact on the environment.

Ways to be a greener driver

Before you set off

• Give your car the once over and remove anything in the boot you don't need - it will make the car lighter so it uses less fuel. Only use a roof rack when you need it as it is wasted weight and increases air resistance that makes the engine work harder.
• More work - more fuel used - more cost - more CO².
• A well maintained and regularly serviced car can use less fuel than one that is neglected. Check your tyre pressures - under-inflated tyres are not only dangerous but can increase fuel consumption by up to 3%.
• Finally, try and plan your journey so you avoid heavy traffic spots and roadworks if possible. The shorter the journey the less fuel is used.

On the road

• If your car is reasonably new, don't waste energy waiting for the engine to warm up - just get in and go. Keeping the engine running as pumping the accelerator wastes fuel and increases engine wear and CO² emissions.
• Drive as smoothly as you can, avoiding sharp acceleration and sudden braking. The less you have your foot on the accelerator, the less fuel you'll use. Accelerating and slowing down gradually can improve fuel efficiency by around a third. It can also save on the cost of frequent replacement of the brake pads.
• Keep your eyes on the rev counter and shift to a higher gear at the right time - 2500rpm for petrol cars and 2000-3000 rpm for diesel cars. A car traveling at 37mph in third gear uses 25% more fuel than it would at the same speed in fifth gear.
• Stick to the speed limits, especially on motorways. Fuel efficiency falls fast after 60 miles an hour. Driving at 80mph rather than 70mph uses 10-15 per cent more fuel. At 70mph you could be using up to 30% more fuel than at 50mph.
• Air conditioning in cars increases emissions and decreases fuel economy, so turn yours off as soon as your car is cool enough. Better still, use your air vents instead. You'll also save fuel if you're careful with the heating and cut back on electrical devices like mobile phone chargers.
• If you're stuck in a traffic jam, or stationary for more than 3 minutes, switch off the engine to save fuel and stop emissions. Cars are less efficient on tick-over.

Sharing car journeys is a very simple way to cut CO2 emissions. It also helps to save on petrol and parking costs and cuts the amount of traffic on the road. So why not give it a go? You've nothing to lose except carbon emissions, traffic jams and pollution.

You could save around a tonne of carbon dioxide every year, just by sharing your daily journey with someone else, says Liftshare.org, the UK's largest car-sharing network. And with petrol and diesel prices soaring, you'll be saving cash as well.

To find out about car sharing try:

Surrey Car Share Opens in a new window

Peer into any car during the rush hour and chances are most will have only the driver and maybe just one other passenger on board. Every day there are 10 million empty seats in cars on our roads.
If the average car occupancy was increased by half, with 2.37 persons per car instead of 1.58, the amount of traffic on our roads would fall by one third. So sharing journeys with a workmate could take millions of cars off the road - and everyone would get home a lot quicker!

Even if there was just a 10% rise in car occupancy, the fall in traffic would be the same as if twice as many people took the train to work.

The UK's largest online car sharing scheme is Liftshare Opens in a new window Drivers can search for people to give lifts to, while passengers can search for lifts to any destination in the Britain. The cost of the travel is shared, so it works out cheaper, too.

Have you tried cycling into work?