Mileage Goal
During my last eight week project I tried to use my car as little as possible, but I didn’t set any hard and fast goals. When I did drive I tried to follow many guidelines in order to increase fuel efficiency. This time around I’m going to put a hard limit on my driving by setting an explicit mileage goal. Since I don’t do any recurrent and necessary driving (I take the bus or walk to campus and back) my baseline use is 0 miles per week. On the other hand, when I purchase large, heavy things or pick friends up from the airport, I accrue miles that don’t seem all that optional. Also there are times when for social reasons or because of timing it is preferable to drive.
With these thoughts in mind, I’m going to set a goal of 40 miles per week during my eight weeks (320 miles total). If I am driving a carpool somewhere I’ll count only my share, so if the trip is 90 miles and there are three people in my car, I’ll charge myself 30 miles. At the start of my experiment my odometer read 166,067 miles and so far I’ve driven two miles. We’ll see how it goes…
I think this kind of goal can be an interesting exercise for anyone. Calculate the number of miles that you have to drive every week (to work, for example) and then give yourself a mileage “budget” above that. If you beat your goal, take yourself out to dinner in celebration with the leftover miles. I’m sure anyone can find innovative ways to string trips together, carpool, walk/bike/take the bus and otherwise reduce his or her driving.
March 11th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
[...] weeks was this past Saturday and I thought I would post a quick update about how I did with my mileage goal. At the end of the eight weeks I had a reading of 166,495 miles on my odometer. That means that I [...]