Greener Driving Tips to Make a Difference
Almost 80% of people in the UK have access to at least one car. Cars are convenient (and often cheaper than taking the train). But they come at a cost to the planet. The good news? Small shifts can make a real different to help you be a greener driver. Also read about electric cars.
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Reduce Your Car Use
Not every trip needs a car. You can walk, cycle or combine journeys, to lower running costs, and get some fresh air and exercise too.
Read the lovely little guidebook Cutting Your Car Use. Printed on 100% recycled paper, it includes 100 simple tips. The author (England’s first traffic reduction consultant) walks and cycles most places, and sometimes hires a car or taxi, showing you can mix and match, to suit your lifestyle.
Never Leave Dogs in Warm or Hot Cars
Even a few minutes is risky, for dogs left inside parked vehicles. Temperatures rise fast, turning any car into an oven, even on mild days. Heatstroke can quickly cause death.
Keep pets with you when out driving, or leave them at home, in warm or hot weather. Councils can help by creating more dog-friendly beaches. Irresponsible guardians may arrive on holiday, then leave dogs in cars, if they discover beach bans.
If you see a dog in a hot car, smash the window, move the animal to a shady area and apply cool (not cold) water and call the vet, RSPCA and police.
Likely dog guardians will feel too guilty to charge you with criminal damage (they will hopefully thank you).
Practical Tips for Greener Driving
- Regular servicing can improve fuel efficiency: inflated tyres, well-tuned engines, oil changes). Click Mechanic lets you book vetted local mechanics at good prices, due to low overheads.
- Antifreeze is lethal to pets/wildlife, so let mechanics change it in enclosed spaces. Or use funnel (as with oil) and use sand/kitty litter to absorb spills (don’t mop).
- AA has tips on buying used cars. Avoid ‘cut-and-shut (two damaged cars welded together), cloning (replacing number plates) and clocking (adjusting mileage). Don’t check cars in the rain (water hides dents and scratches) and insist on a service history and V5C vehicle registration document.
- ETA (Environmental Transport Association) offers vehicle inspection checks (plus eco-friendly insurance/breakdown cover).
Join a Car-Sharing Club
If you drive less than 10,000 miles a year, sharing a car with others is a good way to get the benefits of driving a car, without the hassle and expense of owning one (or having to sit next to a motormouth, one possible peril of lift-sharing).
Co-Wheels (a social enterprise) offer modern hybrid cars nationwide that you rent by the hour. It pays for the car, maintenance, cleaning, road tax, insurance and even pre-paid fuel & breakdown cards – you just pay extra if you drive a long way.
Peer-to-peer car-sharing clubs like Turo let car-owners earn up to £6000 a year passive income, by letting others share use of their vehicle (fully insured).
Car-sharing does not just free up funds for you, but helps to reduce road traffic. Most people’s cars sit on the road for 96% of the time. Car-sharing clubs means each vehicle is mostly driving around, freeing up 19 out of 20 car parking spaces.
If you don’t mind lift-sharing, you can list your profile, then look for people to share journeys with. In most cases, insurance is not affected (as long as no profit is made).
Read tips to keep safe (including not sharing your full name and address before meeting in a public place, letting others know where and when you are going).
Try Waterless Car Wash Products
Driveway and supermarket car washes are not good, as oily water goes untreated down storm drains, and into the sea. This causes oil spills, which harms marine wildlife. Either use an eco-friendly car wash company, or switch to a waterless car wash.
Another reason to avoid supermarket car washes, is concern over worker welfare, often paid below minimum wage without protective clothing. If you book one, use Safe Car Wash app.
Rubbit is a kit to clean cars without water, designed by two airline pilot, who worked with chemists to design a foaming formula, to absorb dirt and be wiped, without rinsing. If you wash your car every two weeks, this kit saves over 3000 gallons of water.
Just soak the included Microfiber towels in a budget of water (the detergent has already washed them, so no need to launder in the washing machine).
The company also makes eco-friendly dissolving windshield window tablets (give the air-fresheners a miss, they are made with fake scent). Instead use charcoal purifying bag that are scent-free, so good if travelling with babies, pets or allergies).
Removing Bird Poop Off Car Paintwork
Remove this immediately to avoid burning paint (and scratches, due to containing seeds). mix 4 tablespoons of baking soda in a litre of warm water, shake to mix and spray from a bottle. Leave to soak for 10 minutes, then rinse off with a wet cloth or hose.
To prevent birds pooping on your car (apart from not parking under trees!), a survey found that birds hardly ever poop on green cars (nobody is sure why!)
How to Valet Your Car, Naturally
- Use a car trash bag to store rubbish, until you get home. Never throw it out the window (this attracts scavenging wildlife, putting them in danger of traffic).
- Use plastic-free cloths and sponges with biodegradable unscented cleaner. Absorb odours with a charcoal purifying bag (if you smoke, do so outside the car, and use a personal ashtray to safely extinguish butts, until you find a bin).
- Avoid de-icing sprays (use a windscreen cover or park your car facing east, to naturally defrost in the morning). Or rub half an onion on the screen the night before (the oil lines the glass to stop freezing – keep onions away from pets).
Donate Scrap Cars to Charity
Donate old cars that are not roadworthy to raise funds for local causes. You must obtain a DVLA Certification of Destruction, to avoid getting fined by DVLA.
Charity Car and Give a Car are the two main organisations, that can arrange collection nationwide. Parts are repaired or reused, and your charity gets the car’s scrap value.
Avoid listed charities that test on animals, and choose alternative causes instead (butterfly conservation, horse sanctuaries, animal shelters, homeless shelters).
You can scrap cars as insurance write-offs, rather than leaving them as fire hazards and eyesores on the street. Give the ATF the vehicle log book (V5C) but keep the yellow ‘sell, transfer or part-exchange your vehicle to the motor trade’ section, and again tell DVLA to avoid a hefty fine.
Donating scrap cars also helps prevent England’s ‘car graveyards’, where cars are dumped and left to decay, leaking oil and antifreeze. One walker in Wales recently discovered 50 classic cars (including Mercedes), all left to rot in a forest.
Ask your mechanic to recycle used tyres (fire/pollution hazards) that can be made into roofing, crash barriers & carpet underlay.
Learn how to change a tyre in 10 simple steps. ‘Eco-tyres’ have less rolling resistance, so reduce fuel consumption & carbon emissions. Check tread regularly with a digital gauge and replace worn treads (that won’t grip in wet weather, and can get you fined).
Campaign for Animal-Friendly Number Plates
In the USA, many states let drivers buy license plates that donate money to animal charities. Mutts cartoonist Patrick McDonnell illustrates animal-friendly license plates in New Jersey.
Conservation Plate is similar, in that the plates support charities for wild birds and marine mammal protection. Which begs the question why similar programs are not running in England, a country renowned for being batty about animal welfare.
It would need a bit of work, as things work differently over the pond. Car owners pay their fee to local motor vehicle license agencies, and simply swap their plates. But in the UK, DVLA is in Wales, so at present this could not be done.
But it should be. It’s possible in England to buy vanity-based private number plates, so why not plates that help animal welfare and conservation causes?
Paramedics are also not fans of ‘baby on board’ stickers. Anything (including furry dice) in car windows can obscure vision, when driving. And reading the sticker can cause people to take their eyes off the road (and there cause accidents).
Nobody ‘plans’ to have a car accident. So displaying a warning is not going to work. A report on an Australian parenting website noted that 1 in 20 accidents may even be caused by such stickers, due to obscuring the rear window view.
And if paramedics arrive on scene, sometimes they are looking for a child in the car (when the baby may not even be in it, at that time).
