Pretending to be a One Car Family

When I was a little girl in the 1970's my family had only one car.  I don't remember much about it other than it was white.  My father drove it to work while my mother stayed home and cared for me.  When I was very little she worked nights after my father got home and car pooled with a group of women from town.  On days I had a doctor's appointment Dad found a ride to work or my mom dropped him off and picked him up.  In my early teens we got another car and became a two car family.

Unlike my parents, there has never been a time that my husband and I have been a one car family.  We both work away from the home and we put a lot of miles on our vehicles.  Last year we often rode together trying to save money.  This year my goal is to live a more environmentally friendly life and once again carpooling makes sense.

My husband works 25 miles from our home.  I work 23 miles from our home.  The distance between the schools we teach in is only 5 miles.   I used a  carbon footprint calculator and determined that my husband's truck is responsible for 0.16 metric tons of CO2 and my car, 0.8 metric tons of CO2 per week.  So in one year of working if we both drive daily that ends up creating 7.68 metric tons of CO2. Just remember this does not include weekend travel or summer travel.  

Now let's pretend to be a one car family and use my Nissan Cube to commute to work and see how those emissions drop. If we use just my car to travel to work and include the additional miles between schools, then we will be responsible for 0.10 metric tons of CO2 per week and 3.2 metric tons of CO2 per year.  That is definitely greener!

Reasons to car pool:

1. More time together as a family
2. Less CO2 emissions
3. Saves money                

For my family these are three really good reasons to pretend we are a 1 car family.