Cars, Traffic and Roads
A few things I have seen of the past week or so to do with cars, traffic or roads:
Less speed more haste
I have notice a few articles about Active Traffic Management recently. Apparently part of the M42 has been modified so that drivers can use the hard shoulder at busy periods, variable speed limits and better signage. This has caused journey times to be shorter and fuel consumption to be lower.
This speeds limit thing is quite interesting in Germany recently if they had lowered their speed limit to 80mph it would have lowered the whole country’s CO2 emissions by 5%. If you want to drive you car more efficiently why not visit the Energy Savings Trust Efficient Driving page for some tips.
Size isn’t every thing
Apparently the Euro NCAP ratings for those big cars that parents seem to like to take their children to school in are not very good. The Nissan Navara got one star for adult occupancy and three for child occupancy. As a comparison our little Renault Clio got five stars for adult occupancy and four for child occupancy although apparently the Navara is better for pedestrians!
Less is more
I watched the first episode of ‘The Woman Who Stops Traffic‘ the other night. I watched the episode about Marlow. It really made me think. Recently I have been driving to work as I need to drop our daughter at nursery so it is an awkward round trip. The programme made think about it to the point where I am going to see a man about buying a second hand bike. Hopefully this will go some way to reducing car usage in our family as I will be able to cycle half the journey at least. As the documentary shows not using your car for one day a week can make a difference. Channel 4 have come up with a handy thingy to show how you could make a difference.
Hey just stopping by to get my dose of green info. Always good stuff here! I am trying to compile a list of stuff I can do to reduce my carbon emissions. MTV had a commercial about it, and got me interested. I have been to www.earthlab.com and they have a ton of tips but I was mostly impressed by their page where they have their users send in tips: http://www.earthlab.com/life/tips.aspx Does anyone else know of other data bases that I can find these types of small things that lower my emissions? EPA or WWF maybe?
Thanks for all your info and drop me a link if you guys see anything worth my time.