Driving Green: 10 Ways to Be More Eco-Friendly on the Road

1. The Right Tool for the Task

You wouldn’t think of using a sledgehammer to hang a picture frame. Driving a gas-hungry SUV on your daily commute is equally senseless. In a dual-driver household, the wage earner with the longer, more consumptive commute should draw the most-efficient vehicle from the motor pool.

The family’s Ford Expedition or Hummer H2 should be reserved for those special occasions — a vacation trip, towing the boat to a lake, a weekend off-road adventure — where their extra power and traction are really needed and actually used.

The next time you shop for a new vehicle, shift efficiency higher on your list of priorities. Don’t miss the EPA mileage and annual fuel cost figures posted on the window sticker. A 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid (49/51city/hwy mpg) posts an annual fuel cost of $795 versus $2,484 to drive exactly the same distance in a 2007 Ford Explorer (14/20 city/hwy mpg). You can find more EPA data by vehicle at www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/ and www.fueleconomy.gov.