[SolarDave]

Ok all you bright folks - we may be in for a short period (weeks? months?) of "iffy" gasoline supplies and prices.

Please post in this topic ideas that will REDUCE THE NUMBER OF TRIPS an individual needs to make in their vehicle.

I'm not talking about ideas like "walk" or "ride a bike" - I am looking for ideas that many people may not have thought of that they can IMMEDIATELY take advantage of, and possible PERMANENTLY change their vehicle use as a result. Here is my contribution:

For my whole life I have been driving to pick up medical prescriptions. I discovered last Friday that my medical plan, Kaiser Permanente, will send them to me via regular postal mail. I will never drive to pick up a prescription again.

Everyone: Start tomorrow. Ask your pharmacy if they will mail your prescriptions. No more driving to pick up perscriptions.

Next?

[nocar]

when planning to go shopping ask your neighbor if you can do shopping for her/him also - hopefully he/she will return the favor. Or come along in a shopping car pool.

nocar

[gt1370a]

See if your employer will let you work from home 1 or 2 days a week (assuming you have a job that you can do from home). If not, take some sick days.

[Googolplex]

Do a tour of all the retail businesses that are closest to your home. Actually go in and see what they have, etc. Really look around too, there may be small shops close by that you didn't even acknowledge before.

We all have our prefered places to buy food, clothing, whatever, but you may be suprised at what you can find if you are a bit more adventurous and try the closer shops, even if you are unfamiliar with them. You could save alot of gas making the shorter trips.

[spudbuddy]

"Let Your Fingers Do the Walking"
remember that?
Instead of comparision shopping, driving from place to place, check flyers, catalogues, or when possible, make a phone call and find out
information.
Every time you can do this and access information (maybe even on the net) and save yourself a trip, you're cutting down on the driving.
How many times have you gone somewhere, only to find that they don't
have what you're looking for, or that they're closed, or that the person
you need to see isn't there...etc.
(for all the phoning going on these days...it's amazing how many people
never think of calling ahead for this particular reason.)

[strider3700]

Most people drive into town each day to go to work, So make sure you preplan a loop of all the things you need to do and hit them all on that one trip.

[mommy22]

Perhaps, if possible, as when I was a little girl and our family lived out in the country and had only one car. My mother would drive into town only once or twice a week, with a good list of whatever her needs were. Everything got done, bought, dropped off on that trip. If it didn't get done, it would have to wait until the following trip. I imagine that if lots of us went from 6-7 trips a week down to one, that would save a bit.
Also, while slightly related, I've hooked up with other moms who are a little in the know about all this. We've decided to have fundraisers for the purpose of buying bike racks for our children's school. Perhaps that will give families the idea that their precious darlings can move out the door a few minutes early, and get themselves to school, rather than driving less than a mile twice a day, every day.

[Devil]

Ask someone to dig a 1 m deep hole anywhere and bury your car keys

[Celerity]

Stage your trips -

I have a Scooter, Honda CRX and an SUV. Wife has a wagon. I have the part-timers registered in Maine so I can drop their insurance in the Summer (Or winter). I stage out my trips accordingly - To the store real quick, or a local friend - Scooter. Winter long trips, CRX and SUV for highway (Really high gears) and bad weather trips. I also tend to plan out the trips to cover many things (I'll stop for a fillup on my way to a friend's house, or friends on the way to get gas)

[gg3]

Drive at 55 mph. Significant fuel savings compared to 65 or even 60.

Consolidate or eliminate extra trips for shopping. Make a note of the stores you see on the way home from work. Stick a few pieces of scrap paper on the fridge with a magnet. When you see something is running out, write it on the page. Take that page to work with you every day. On the way home, stop & get whatever-it-is. If your kids come home from school and put more stuff on the next piece of scrap paper on the fridge, take that list with you the next day.

Teach your kids that there is no more "instant gratification," but instead, whatever they want that isn't in the house at the moment, will have to be posted on the fridge and wait for the next scheduled shopping run.

Buy milk and other core essentials ahead of need, i.e. always have enough to last you in case you have to postpone a regular shopping day for whatever reason.

If weekend shopping trips are needed, talk to the neighbors about car-pooling those. Everyone get everyone else's phone number in the neighborhood, and organize so all plans are made a day ahead.

If everyone in the neighborhood has a computer at home (reasonable assumption), set up a Yahoo Group (groups.yahoo.com) for your street. Set up the access for "members only, approved by moderator," to prevent crafty burglars getting in and collecting information; anyone who wants to join has to send you their phone number so you can call 'em and verify their address is in the neighborhood.

Then everyone post their various transport-related needs, e.g. "Ms. Smith here, my kids want to go to the movies on Saturday afternoon," and see how many of those trips can be carpooled. "Ms. Alvarez here, my kids want to go to the movies too, let's go together," and "Laundromat on Friday night, anyone else?" "Yeah me too, call before you leave and I'll be waiting on the sidewalk."

This can also naturally turn into a carpool-commuting network, for sharing rides to a downtown area or to a local public transport system.

If you need telecommuter systems in the San Francisco Bay Area, private-message me or go to www.cooperative-digital.com which is my company's website (I haven't posted our URL before because I don't believe in using these forums for free advertising, but it seems appropriate to mention here because telecommuting is becoming a critical need right now). Our web page has a section on telecommuting benefits, that is written with the business owner's perspective in mind. I can make a pretty convincing case to almost anyone that telecommuting will benefit their company.

If you can't telecommute and the public transport in your area isn't adequate, see about getting time-shifted work hours, so you aren't driving in heavy traffic. Stop-and-go is enormously wasteful, any steady speed is far better. You could try starting an hour earlier and leaving an hour earlier, or starting an hour later and leaving an hour later.

Think ahead to the winter heating season:

All the prices will be up unless you heat with solar or with electricity that comes from a hydroelectric, nuclear, or wind site. Now's the time to buy heavy curtains to hang over all of your windows. In a pinch, cheap blankets or almost any other heavy cloth will do. It may not be aesthetic, but neither is an empty bank account after you've paid the heating bill. Open the curtains during the day to let the sunlight warm up the rooms, and close them as sunset approaches.

Buy lots of long underwear, right now, before the seasonal price increase occurs. During the cold months, wear long underwear (top as well as bottom) indoors at home all the time; it's worth the equivalent of a five-degree increase in indoor heat.

Weatherstrip window and door frames. Minimize use of the clothes dryer (buy a drying rack or set up indoor clothes lines). If you can selectively turn off heat in certain rooms, do it: close off the vents, turn off the radiators, or whatever, and keep the doors to those rooms closed.

Turn the thermostat down to 50 degrees when everyone is out or sleeping. You can do this manually before you leave for work and before you go to bed at night. If you want to wake up to a warm house in the morning, get a thermostat with a timer (about $30 - $50, will pay for itself quickly) and set it for your regular weekday schedule. On weekends you can bypass it for heat during the day.

All of this stuff is common sense and we should be doing it anyway, but a sudden price increase is a good nudge to get going on it right now.

[skyemoor]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SolarDave', '
')I'm not talking about ideas like "walk" or "ride a bike"

[JoeW]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'D')rive at 55 mph. Significant fuel savings compared to 65 or even 60.

[JoeW]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'D')rive at 55 mph. Significant fuel savings compared to 65 or even 60.

[Aedo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JoeW', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'D')rive at 55 mph. Significant fuel savings compared to 65 or even 60.