driving without due care and attention

According to N, Daddy is a much better driver than Mummy. I am not convinced that she is right - and have certainly never compared our driving styles in front of her. Nevertheless, she would have changed her mind if she had had any idea what I was doing yesterday.

Frankly, I blame the BBC. They carried this article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7530652.stm

...which concerns the technique called eco-driving. The trouble is, when the screen in the car can give a real-time, as well as average, fuel consumption figure, it is all too easy to drive more in response to what the little wiggly lines and bar charts are doing, rather than being concerned with inconsequential matters such as what the traffic in front is doing.

When I started the car yesterday, it displayed an average figure of about 36mpg - an average based on an unknown amount of time since it also includes the performance of the not-particularly-careful previous owner (quite how he (surely it was a 'he'?) managed to smash the driver's central arm-rest is a mystery to me).

Pressing the reset button for the first time, I arrived at my destination, having proudly achieved 54mpg - and without crashing into moving (or stationary) vehicles, or careering off the road, or choosing a new destination based on where the traffic seemed lightest. Keeping the speed around 60mph on the motorway-class road, I arrived feeling calm and eco-smug, delighted to discover how much quieter the car can be at lower speeds. And I hadn't even driven in the slipstream of a lorry - mostly because the back of a lorry isn't really much fun to look at.

Sadly, the thin patina of enviro-respectability quickly tarnishes. A similar driving style, coupled with rather greater observation of the road, yielded only 46mpg on the way back, together with a realisation that the route had been mostly coasting downhill on the way out and so, inevitably, there was significantly less coasting on the uphill return. Oh, and S arrived after us and so had to bring her car as well.

Today, the outings have involved a walk to the shop for milk and mushrooms. Additionally, N has spent a large chunk of the morning out in dreamland - no doubt recovering from the late night. Negligible carbon emissions for either trip.

And now, I must go and burn some natural gas in order to cook lunch. With any luck, I might even get most of it done before N wakes up. Any carbon dioxide emissions will probably be gobbled up by the Busy-Lizzie desperately trying to take over the windowsill.