Want to save gas? Ban drive-thrus

THE ASSOCIATED PRES

Drivers often wait longer in the drive-thru lineup than if they went into the store.

Jil McIntosh

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

You'd have to have been asleep under a rock this last little while if you haven't seen the emergence of "green" in the U.S.

Fuel economy standards are tightening up. California has mandated everything from its own tailpipe emissions standards to sunlight-reflecting auto glass to reduce air conditioning use, and it's been successful in getting the rest of the country to adopt many of its measures. And President Barack Obama has made small, fuel-efficient cars a key bargaining point in his automaker bailout funds, even if most Americans have displayed an overwhelming reluctance to buy them.

And yet, despite what's going on in the state and country capitals, the one key piece of the puzzle that seems to be missing is any widespread effort on the part of drivers to play along.

Recently I spent a couple of days driving in the U.S. I kept to the speed limit on 70 m.p.h. (112 km/h) highways, and was the slowest vehicle on the road. I opened my windows to catch a breeze, while everyone else turned up the air conditioning. And I got out of my car to walk into a store, bypassing the long line of idling vehicles in the drive-thru.

It's not surprising, really. This is the land of the low-fat potato chip, where you opt for a slightly-less-bad-for-you snack rather than reach for an apple. Likewise, people expect that simply putting hybrids and hatchbacks on dealer lots will somehow magically clean the air and reduce their use of oil.

As if.

Before you get too smug, though, Canadians aren't much better. Very few of us go out of our way to make a difference. We wait longer in the car lineup for a Timmy's double-double than if we went into the store, take off from stoplights like scared jackrabbits, crank up the air in summer, and rush to buy remote starters for winter, lest we have to endure a couple of minutes in the cold before the heater starts working.

A combination of government initiatives and voluntary consumer actions could make a world of difference. Ban drive-thrus, which would cut down on unnecessary idling, and also make our roads a lot safer (I was once involved in a serious crash with a driver more concerned about his coffee than exiting safely onto the street). Or at the very least, restrict them to those who really need them, such as the disabled, or those with a couple of small children buckled into their car seats, when it's a major production to get everyone out and back in. For everyone else, the stroll across the parking lot will do you good.

Check your tires. The Rubber Association of Canada estimates that if every driver checked and adjusted tire pressure once a month, collectively we'd save almost 643 million litres of fuel every year. Read that again: over half a billion litres before adding a single hybrid, alternative-fuel or electric vehicle to the mix.

Watch your speed, avoid hard acceleration, and if you're one of those drivers who are on-the-gas, off-the-gas, on-the-gas, learn how to maintain a steady speed. You'll save on fuel and stop annoying your passengers.

We need the upcoming technologies and mandates, but we don't have to wait for them. I'll bet that with careful driving habits, I could get better fuel economy out of a Hummer than some drivers do with a Toyota Camry.

In short, it's time to stop counting on low-fat potato chips if we seriously want to lose some weight.

jil@ca.inter.net

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