Celebrate America by Saving Gas: A Call to Walk, Bike or Ride

America is being held hostage by foreign nations, and there are no ropes, guns or containments of any type. There's just our own willingness to acquiesce to our imprisonment. We gave these muggers our pocketbooks without a fight and willingly signed over paychecks that would feed our family to purchase the new gold standard, a gallon of gasoline. How could this happen? We allowed it.

This nation that was born of rugged individualism and a can do spirit now sits back and shakes their head in woe at the high price of gasoline. Talk around the water cooler about gas prices makes a body feel better but does nothing to take back our country and our economy. That is why today this lowly writer is calling for that same spirit to spark again in our country. We are fighters and proud of our heritage. Our country never sat back and "ALLOWED" others to tell us how to live, we chose our lifestyle. Today, we allow foreign nations to control our economy and our hard earned money and it is time for every American to rise up and scream "NO! I WILL NOT PAY THIS GAS PRICE ANY LONGER." That is why I write today, that is why I am calling for every man, woman and child in this nation to declare the week of July 5th through July 12th our Independence Week. It is time to exert our independence from gas consumption and make a statement.

We Americans use almost 389 million gallons of gasoline per day. That's about 1.27 gallons each day for every person in our country. If each family works to save just three gallons of gasoline for each household member a message to the oil companies will be sent. One voice is not enough, we all must band together and spread the word about Independence week and saving gas. I ask that anyone reading this either send this link to a friend or take the time to explain the concept to them. I ask that each of you call television and radio stations, write the newspaper, call a friend and put it on the bulletin board at work. We are a national family that is spread far and wide, diverse and often isolated. It is time to approach the neighbors, talk to coworkers, e-mail friends and start a grassroots movement that makes an impact.

Wear a ribbon of red when you save one gallon, a white one when you save two and a blue one when three gallons are saved. If you save more add more ribbons. Be proud of your accomplishments.

Before You Begin

Some of the gas savings require that you know how many miles per gallon your car uses. Calculate this by filling up the tank and recording the odometer reading. The next time you fill your tank, also right down the odometer reading and subtract the first reading from it. Divide the number of gallons into the number of miles you drove. Every time you share a ride you save half the number of miles. If you share a ride to work with one person and the distance round trip is 45 miles, you saved 22.5 miles or almost a gallon of gas for most cars. If you share a ride with 4 people multiply the distance by the number of people minus one, since he is driving and divide by the number of people. 45 times 3 is 135 divided by 4 is approximately 34 miles or almost 1-1/2 gallons of gas.

Ways to Save Gasoline

Ride a Bike or Take a Bus...or Both.

I ride my bike in the summer and now have the luxury of not having to be somewhere at any particular time. I understand that it is easier for me to find alternatives to driving. I did, however, begin to use the public transportation system. I am 60 years old and this is only the second time in my life that I rode a city bus. I was amazed at how quickly the time went and how congenial all the other guests on the bus were. The bus stop was not close to my house and my destination had no safe bike paths so I rode the bike to the bus stop and then took the bus to the destination. It was a little difficult to figure out how to put the bike on the back of the bus, but I did manage. I write this because every larger city has a public transportation system. The buses already are traveling and why not save gas money. If you don't live near a bus stop, you can combine your two wheel transportation with the city transportation.

Investigate the local bus schedule. If you work near a bus pick up and live near the bus stop, use it. Walk to the closest bus stop and ride to work. It is amazing how much easier it is to put on make up when you're not driving. The cost is a lot cheaper than paying outrageous gas prices and you may find that during nice weather it is a pleasure.

Car Pool

Find a central location with a large parking lot in several areas for employees to meet and carpool from there. Ask your employer to put a sign up sheet in the employees lounge. Companies that draw their staff from various cities could list each of those cities and even break them down to areas if the towns are large enough. Six people to a vehicle saves a lot when done five days of the week and could be your three gallons or even more. You might not like your co-worker but for one week you can tolerate the creepy guy from accounting. Who knows, maybe you'll make a new friend once you get to know them.

Drive Slower

For every 10 miles per hour we slow our driving, we increase our gas mileage by 4 miles per gallon. Another way of saying it is that after 55 miles per hour there is a decrease of about 1% for each time we increase our speed by one mile per hour. There is even a bigger decrease in fuel economy after we reach 65 miles per hour. I would love to see the major highways and roads ask people to drive 55 miles an hour, just for one week, but I know that it would never happen. Instead, I ask that you drive in the slow lane and keep your speed to just below the legal limit. I just found out myself that five miles over the speed limit posted isn't really the legal limit, it actually is the speed that is posted. Use the slow lane and don't stop the insane drivers that insist on going a zillion miles an hour. If, by some chance, everyone is doing his or her part, all traffic will travel at one mile below the posted speed limit.

Check your mpg the week before Independence week and then check it after you make all adjustments to your driving. See how much gas you saved. Oh, by the way, don't forget to leave about 10 minutes earlier.

Adjust Your Driving

I used to drive a Lincoln Towncar and it had all the bells and whistles. While the car was not my favorite, I loved the little digital read out that told me the miles per gallon I was getting at that moment in time. It was my teacher. During that time I learned to coast to stop lights and not do the hurry up and wait, lift my foot lightly when going downhill, use cruise control and stop rabbit take offs at a stop light. After the first month in the car with the dandy little teaching tool that gave me immediate feedback, I increased the mpg in the car by two. It was huge since I was on the road a lot. These little tips don't take any effort but return huge savings in gas.

Take Care of Your Car

Get a tune up, have your tires inflated to the proper pressure and make sure that you have a clean air filter. According to http://gasmilage.wordpress.com/category/gas-milage/ you increase your mpg by 3% when you have properly inflated tires, 10% with a clean air filter, and 4% after a tune up. Of course those amounts vary from vehicle to vehicle. Again, check your mileage before you make the changes and then afterward.

Turn Off the Car

Edmunds.com did their own test and discovered that if you must stop longer than 2 minutes it is best to shut the car down. They saved 19 % when they followed this rule.

Meet Your Neighbors

You may wave at the elderly woman down the road or the young couple as they rake their yard, but have you ever really been neighborly. Why not take this time to meet them. If they have children, leave the kids with the guys and car pool to the grocery. Invite the elderly neighbor along to do shopping the next time you go.

A word of warning! This is not saying that anyone older is a bad driver, but some older people should have given up their license voluntarily. I remember one day a client wanted to show off his new car and came to invite me for a ride. He was a dear sweet 90-year-old man that I truly cared about, so how could I say no. I never prayed so much in my life as I did that short five minute drive. Once we were in someone's front yard, several times stop signs were ignored, and I was in control and thwarted my screams to mere mmmmm's that were held in my mouth by my tightly sealed lips. After he dropped me off at my office I immediately wrote a check to a local church and dropped to my knees for a most appreciative "thank you" for a ride scarier than anything Cedar Point could offer. All this being said, volunteer to drive and figure that you saved half the gas that it took to get there.

Save Some Oil

We don't have to stop at just saving gasoline, save oil too. There are a huge number of items made from oil. Panty hose, plastic bags, deodorants, hearing aids and heart valves are just a few. Please don't run out and ditch the heart valve, go around stinky or take off your panty hose but you can reuse the plastic grocery bags. According to the Sierra Club if one ton of plastic bags were reused we would save 11 barrels of oil. Each barrel produces 19.5 gallons of gas. That means that you could save 214.5 gallons of gasoline by just bringing your own bag. This also reduces the cost for the grocery store and ultimately will reduce food prices. No one person can do it alone and not every bag can be recycled. We all need some at home for kitty litter disposal and garbage removal, but carry a few with you and each small dent we make becomes another slash at huge oil companies.

PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS AND SHARE THIS ARTICLE

At the bottom of the article is a spot to add your comments. Please add any tips that I may have missed. There is a spot to email it to a friend. Do that also. Please share the concept of Independence Week with everyone on your email list. If you want to explain it yourself, great! Otherwise just forward the link and ask that they forward it on. No one person can make a dent but together we can control our destiny. One person makes a difference only when they influence others to follow a united course. Please join with me to get our independence back. Save three gallons or more and cover your suit with red, white and blue. Prove that our nation is still composed of the same strong can do people that made this country great. I'm proud to be an American and believe that with all our troubles, we can still unite to conquer any problem, solve any dilemma and defeat any threat to our way of life or freedom.

Celebrate July 5th through July 12th. Walk, ride a bike, share a ride, take a Harley or ride a bus for our nation.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/19/MNG3NFAOF11.DTL http://gasmilage.wordpress.com/category/gas-milage/

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/104752/Slow-Down-a-Lttle-Save-a-Lot-of-Gas

http://www.edmunds.com/advice/fueleconomy/articles/106842/article.htmlhttp://www.sierraclub.org/bags/