We were excited to take our ecodriving lesson. We have seen that in our area, and I think in most of the U.S., driving is a necessary part of life. We have talked in previous posts about how even eco-friendly recreation, like hiking or camping, requires us to drive to other locations. So we need to make our driving as eco-friendly as possible.
During our lesson we learned several relatively simple tips, and then got a chance to try them out. For me, it was key to have our instructor in the car with me so I could really get a good understanding. Also the computer that gave me real-time information on how much gas the car was using allowed me to see the effect of every one of my actions. I just don’t think we could have learned as much by reading about it. By the end of our lesson I was getting 20% better gas mileage.
But I knew that the real test would be when we went home a drove our normal route in our car. I have found that stop-and-go traffic makes it much harder to use come of the ecodriving tips, but we try to be mindful of how we drive. As a result, I found that on our last tank of gas we got 15% more miles than when I measured before our lesson. And I think that we can do even better with practice.
Interestingly, I also recently rode in a friend’s car that has a real-time gas usage meter. He said that he loved it and he and his wife each tried to outdo each other by getting the best gas mileage. Just another example of how measuring is often the key to using less. I would love to see every car outfitted with a real-time gas use meter and every driving school offering an ecodriving class.
By Climate Pilot Isaiah Akin
Climatepilots' Blog 
I can vouch for Isaiah’s answers! We definitely practice what we preach regarding our driving habits, and our gas mileage is that much better for it. I know I get flak if I haven’t maintained our good driving habits (as measured by our car’s mileage calculator). It really takes few, small changes to make a bigger impact in my fuel economy.