Read this to find out how you can:

Save yourself or your chauffeur (aka parents, mates) over £200 per year in petrol costs
Help save the environment with over 16 million tonnes of CO2 emissions (UK only)
Reduce traffic jams and accidents and have a happier and healthier journey

All with virtually zero effort on your part. Not bad for a few minutes of your time…

Driving us crazy:
A fascinating concept of lean thinking that I have learned in my professional career is that it is counterintuitive. In other words, the way our brain tells us that it’s faster/better to do something is often actually the opposite. Here’s an everyday example…

Christmas card. If we have to write 50 Christmas cards, the best way to do it is to write all the cards first, then do all the addresses on the envelopes, and then do all the stamps, right? No. It’s actually faster to make an entire card ready to send at once. Strange but true. (Since this is an environmental article, it’s worth recommending I send eCards instead!).

You do not believe me? There are YouTube videos of a Lean practitioner doing the experiment and it can even be timed at home as a test!

One of the reasons it’s faster is because there are fewer stops and starts to interrupt the flow – another key Lean concept and a very relevant point to what I’m about to say.

Another place we go wrong is in the way we drive. We have convinced ourselves that the closer we are to the car in front, the faster we will get to where we are going. This is not only wrong, but is the cause of tons of accidents (many fatal), causes us enormous stress, countless traffic jams AND costs us money in gas AND costs the environment in gas emissions.

I tested it on myself when I bought my car, which at the time I bought it 3 years ago politely informed me on the dash that it was getting 43 MPG. It was supposed to be an economy car that got a lot more than this, so what I did was start to put more distance to the car in front, enough that I rarely have to brake because I’m far enough back to lift the foot. throttle means I don’t have to. The MPG shot up quickly and is still going up, but currently sits at 58. You don’t have to be a math genius to figure out that’s an extra 15 MPG!

Saving money:
Fuel has been averaging £1.20 a liter since I bought it (for diesel, slightly less for petrol at £1.16) and I drive approx. 25000 miles per year while traveling so converting this to gallons saves me £820 a year.

The average car driver drives 7500 miles per year, saving £246 (£238 on petrol). The cliché is like big savings to make for such a small price that it rolls off my tongue here, but I’ll spare you the rest!

Environmental impact:
Every year in Britain there are 108 million tonnes of greenhouse emissions from road transport (311 billion vehicle miles, see equation notes). Therefore, on average, this could save the environment 16,623,037 tons of C02 fuel emissions per year. That’s more than 15%! All from a minor change.

This means that you can be part of:

Keeping the Earth at a temperature where we don’t have to worry about whether people and animals can survive the conditions.

Reduce air pollution and save ourselves and our loved ones from all the health conditions it causes, from asthma to heart disease to stunted lung growth in our children.

Being the change:
Once you make this simple change, you’ll start to see everyone’s drive in a different light. You will notice people speeding up to red lights and roundabouts only to have to hit the brakes. You’ll see rows and rows of cars leaving very little distance, so as soon as someone gets in the way, it makes every single one of them brake, which quickly turns into a traffic jam and even a pile-up that could have been easily avoided.

Changing this habit of breaking unnecessarily by driving too closely can be easy when you know all of this and it DEFINITELY makes driving more enjoyable. (Obviously, if you need to brake, brake anyway!)

If you’re like me, it will be a challenge to see how much you can increase your MPG. If you make this change it would be nice to know how many extra MPG you get so please leave a comment.

If it seems unrealistic for people to change their driving habits, you should know that we have, and you are literally saving lives on the roads: Statistics show that deaths on the roads (per billion vehicle miles) are they have dropped from 165 in 1949 to 5.7 in 2014 for reasons including education and behavior change.

Be aware that some stranger on the highway will pass you because there is a gap between you and the car ahead even though you are passing cars in the slower lane (if not, then think about leaving the lane). . passing lane!), but when that happens, don’t get upset, back up to put some distance between you and them and be part of driver’s education (excuse the pun).

If you feel reluctant to change, then it is too big a step. So break it down until you find a starting point that’s easy to achieve, like trying it out for a ride, or part of one, whatever you’re comfortable with will take you to the next step and the next.

If you intend to try this, then tell someone and/or write it down and think about the trip you’ll be doing it for, say tomorrow on your way to work, and you’re much more likely to actually try it.

If that’s not enough to get you started, here’s a bit of inspiration from someone more insightful than me:

“Do your little good where you are, it’s those little bits of good together that overwhelm the world” – Desmond Tutu