One of the #1 complaints I get from people is that it’s not so easy to run out and “just buy a hybrid car” as way to be greener and save money at the gas pump. And I tell them: not all hybrid cars are actually better or greener for the environment. In fact, many standard cars today actually achieve comparable or even better miles per gallon than many “hybrid” automobiles.

The fact is that the Miles Per Gallon (MPG) averages are based on best -case scenarios and are not the reality of what car’s true performance. American drivers perform bad “eco-habits” that reduce a car’s average MPG and many drivers are completely unaware they are even doing these habits to begin with.

By breaking these bad eco-habits, you can increase the fuel efficiency of your existing car by up to a whopping 20%. So, instead of scrapping a perfectly good car for a new one, just try to change these five little habits to save money and save the environment.

BAD HABIT TO BREAK #1:
It’s a drag. At highway speeds, more than 50 percent of engine power goes to overcoming aerodynamic drag. Try not to add to the drag by carrying things on top of your vehicle. A loaded roof rack can decrease a car’s fuel efficiency by 5 percent, or a savings of $107 annually. Even driving with empty ski racks wastes gas. In addition, on days you need your air conditioning, it’s better to USE air conditioning at a low setting when driving at high speeds on highways than to keep the open windows. Open windows decrease your car’s aerodynamic drag.

BAD HABIT #2:
PROPERLY INSTALL A GAS CAP. Can your gas cap increase fuel efficiency? Yes, it can. In cars with sealed or evaporative fuel systems (most cars built after 1970), check to make sure that the rubber seal or gasket on your gas cap is not deteriorated or falling apart. If the gasket is not forming a good seal or if your gas cap is missing altogether, then gasoline is evaporating out of your tank. Also, make sure you twist a gas cap tightly, so it clicks at least THREE times to ensure a proper seal.

A car that sits in the sun with a loose or missing gas cap can lose half a tank of gas in a week by way of evaporation. It is estimated that 147,000,000 gallons of gasoline are lost each year to evaporation from bad gas cap seals or missing gas caps. Gas caps are cheap and available at any auto parts store. You can save about $35 annually in stopping evaporating gas.

BAD HABIT #3:
Remove Excess Weight. Avoid keeping unnecessary items in your vehicle, especially heavy ones. An extra 100 pounds in your vehicle could reduce your MPG by up to 2%. The smaller your car, the more fuel efficiency you lose with extra weight.

If you live in a metropolitan area where you commute to and from work is always on busy roads, consider leaving the spare tire at home. A spare tire weighs on average 30-40 pounds. For those long road trips or weekend trips down bucolic country roads, that’s when you can reload the spare tire for added safety. Keep a can of fix-a-flat tire sealant/inflator on hand to temporarily patch a flat tire, so you can drive to an auto center to get it replaced.

Empty the trunk of all unnecessary items and resist the temptation to turn your car into a “mobile office” with files, books, etc. Make it a habit to always load and unload the car of everything you have. For each 100 lbs of excess weight removed, you’ll earn 1-2% extra fuel efficiency, which averages $42 in savings each year.

BAD HABIT #4:
Watch the tires. Keep your tires properly inflated. Under-inflated tires require more energy to roll, which not only wastes fuel but also wears the tires faster. According to the EPA, a tire that is under-inflated by only 2 pounds per square inch can cause a 1 percent increase in fuel consumption. Under-inflated tires can also build up excess heat, which can lead to tire failure.

If you are unsure how to check your tire’s pressure, have it checked during your routine oil changes by a service professional. You can find your car’s recommended tire pressure on a label inside the car: it’s usually in a door jamb or inside the glove box lid.

BAD HABIT #5:
Stay tuned. One of the biggest gas hogs is a simple maintenance procedure most driver’s don’t bother to do or even know needs to be done. A car’s air filter is designed to trap dirt and particulates from the a ir, preventing impurities from damaging your engine and inside your car. A clogged air filter can cause a 10% increase in fuel consumption, or $215 in wasted gas annually. When you replace the oil in your car, check to see if you the air filter should be replaced too. On average, the filter should be replaced every 15,000 miles. Keep a small removable sticker in your car that has the actual mileage your car next needs an air filter changed.

BAD HABIT #6:
Lose Weight. After losing the car’s spare tire, you may want to consider losing your own excess weight. Americans are spending more money on fuel these days in part because ad ult men and women on average are at least 24 pounds heavier than their counterparts were in 1960. The average man weighs 191 pounds, 25 more than in 1960. The average woman weighs 164 pounds, up from 140 in 1960.

Collectively, today’s automobiles are burning more gasoline to haul all that extra weight around — about 1 billion gallons more annually, in fact, than they would if drivers weighed the same as they did in 1960. Each pound gained by the average person collectively leads to the consumption of 39 million extra gallons of fuel a year, the study found.

The collapse of General Motors this week has me reflecting on the American car culture and it’s influence in my life. Is it dead? What do cars mean to us, and how will that change? The automobile is so ubiquitous that we scarcely consider the affect it’s had beyond mere transportation. Over the past century, cars have changed where and how we live. They gave birth to suburbs and killed cities.  Physical mobility fueled social mobility, enabling the growth of a powerful middle class. And this in turn created a potent and accessible image of the American Dream. Cars altered how we relate to one-another as drive-thrus and lonely commutes isolated us. And yet cars have become a profound symbol of freedom, deeply ingrained in our sense of self. One could be forgiven in thinking the Declaration of Independence promised, “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Open Roads.” Whatever the eventual fate of the automakers themselves, the fate of our relationship to cars is absolutely going to change. The new freedom will have to have bounds, which of course is a vexing oxymoron. This goes for General Motors and their short-term greed as much as it goes for people like me who have a long-standing love affair with gas-guzzlers and the great highway.

I first watched the world roll by from inside our fab ’67 Mercury station wagon. It had wood panel sides, the last vestiges of tail fins, and these cool hideaway rumble seats in the way back. This was my zone and as far back as I can remember, I was happy on the move. At ten, I’d sit for hours in my sister’s orange ’72 Volvo clunker, the garage door in front of me a movie screen of imagined landscapes. As my teen years came on, my impatience to drive grew excruciating.  At home I made a show of crossing off days on my custom-made “cruise countdown” calendar. Meanwhile I was out bombing back roads in my buddy’s ’75 Monte Carlo. By the time I got my license, I’d been driving two years and had logged all the blacktop in the known universe. I can’t say what song was playing when I lost my virginity, but I can tell you that the Romantics’ “What I Like About You” was blasting the first time I drove alone legally.

My car was a 1970 Buick Sklylark. Originally my Dad’s, it became the teenager mobile as each of us hit 16. My older brother and sister had to compete for it, but I was far enough behind to have it all to myself. When I took it over I pimped it out, 80’s redneck style. I jacked it up and put on fat mag wheels and a rumbling duel exhaust. I built a console with a stereo, cup holders, and covered it in brown shag rug. I screwed a glass beer tap handle onto the gear shifter. Yeah, dude. I was all that, rolling into the gas station every few miles with loose pocket change. For the prom I borrowed my neighbor’s ’63 Caddy. My sister’s graduation present was one week with her cherry red convertible ’69 Firebird. I sucked the nectar from every leaded-gas mile.

Have mullet, will travel. Ready for the prom.

I wasn’t alone. Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics played an important early role in validating my wanderlust. It’s been joked that he can’t sing a song without mentioning cars. But he was speaking my language. “Well the night’s busting open these two lanes will take us anywhere. We got one last chance to make it real to trade in these wings on some wheels…”

Motorhead Mentors: Springsteen, Cassady

And so it wasn’t long before I found myself in motor mecca: Los Angeles. It was the mid-80’s and classic cars were still everywhere, not yet collector’s items. I picked up another Sklylark, a ’64, from a little old lady.  Out west I found a whole new world to explore: deserts, redwoods, the Sierras, the twisting coastal highways. Wide open, made for cars. The freeways were peaceful to me in the middle of the night, flowing, never-ending, and I made a hobby of driving them till dawn. It was here, in a college lit class, where I met another guru of the gas pedal: Neil Cassady. His exploits behind the wheel were enshrined in Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road,” (and later as driver of the Merry Prankster’s bus). The fitful adventures of the Beats raised the art of driving to a mystical level for me. I ventured forth as the heir apparent of the hobo-poet church of the open road.

I’ve crisscrossed the country enough times that I’ve lost count, been through most of the lower 48 and Alaska, and slept under the stars in many of them.  I’ve had an oddball collection of vehicles, four-wheeled and two.  I feel fortunate to have done it in the era before cell phones, before debit cards, and long before GPS. But most of all, I’m glad to have experienced travel in the era before guilt.

As my consciousness of ecology has grown over the past decade, my concept of wastefulness has sharpened. I think twice about how I use things like paper, plastic, and electricity, but I also scrutinize my use of gasoline. A nagging voice has been riding shotgun for a few years now, judging every mile I drive. Hey, are we on an essential errand here or just selfishly joyriding? He reminds me that if I take the scenic route home I’m a planet-hater. For every drop of gas burned for my pleasure, there’s a drop of ice melting under a polar bear’s paw.

Eco-guilt is a subject of great fascination for me. At once it can be a positive force and a compulsive neurosis. I can walk through a mega-store and see a kaleidoscope of carbon-footprint stories swirling down each aisle until I’m dizzy.  And now guilt has gone and clouded up the sacred view out my windshield.

But as much as I lament the loss of eco-innocence, of course I have to admit the nagging voice is absolutely right. We can’t act as though we’re isolated and our actions have no ripple consequences. Human disconnect is the exception, not the norm. The garden we’re trying to get back to is one of interdependence, not dominance. A garden where there is no waste.

Maybe there’s no redemption for my gas-guzzling, muscle-car sins. Maybe the point isn’t only better fuel efficiency – what if I get 500 miles per gallon with some futuristic ride but still take the winding road less traveled? Isn’t that still harmful?  I don’t know the answer. If American car culture is defined by mindless waste, then indeed I welcome it’s death. But at the same time, if cars are reduced merely to joyless transportation pods for essential errands, then we risk killing the underlying freedom that cars enabled. No one wants to live a life of straight lines. We all need a little zig-zag in our path. We all need back roads.

Like me, the American car companies have been joyriding for decades. It’s hard to grasp just how tone-deaf they’ve been to why Japanese cars are so popular, starting with the ‘70’s oil crisis. They insisted it was a fluke. Meanwhile they foisted gas-guzzlers on us long after we knew their evils, all for short-term profits. They molded the American Dream into the macho SUV dream. They fought every attempt at regulations that would have been in their own long-term self-interest. Even the slightest suggestion of raising fuel standards brought cries of how impossible it would be to retool the plants. These are the same plants that completely retooled after Pearl Harbor, from cars to churning out planes in a matter of months. And now that we taxpayers own 60% of General Motors, let’s pray that long-term thinking may prevail. The trimmed-down companies need much higher fuel-efficiency standards. The factories that don’t make the cut need help retooling to manufacture green energy technology. And of course we need higher gas taxes to not only discourage big cars, but to discourage excess driving. Oh, but wait. That sounds a lot like I have to give up a few of my freedom miles. I suppose I can. Can you?