I am a techie; I like high-tech stuff. This certainly reaches into the world of automobiles: I own a 2005 Accord Hybrid, and my wife and I are planning to buy a 2006 Civic Hybrid. My parents, on the other hand, are not as cutting edge. They own three cars for the two of them, a Chevy Silverado, a Nissan Maxima, and a Corvette in near mint condition. Now, both my parents and I care about America’s dependence on foreign oil and about the health of our environment: comparing me and my family, which of us is doing a better job of minimizing pollution and conserving gasoline?

They are.

“How can that be?” you might ask. Well, look at it this way. I drove about 15,000 miles last year, starting in Colorado and including trips to San Diego, San Francisco, back to Denver, then to Washington DC, Philadelphia, and New York City. Add to that several small trips in rental cars and about 30,000 airline miles and my wife and I helped burn a lot of fossil fuels during our 365 days on the planet. My parents, on the other hand, rarely go anywhere. They put less than 5,000 miles on their cars last year, and only three times did they venture more than 100 miles from their home. So, though I drive a car that gets more than twice the mileage of theirs, they are the ones doing more to save the planet.

This little story helps illuminate my point du jour: just because you’re driving a car which gets excellent mileage doesn’t mean you should forget about other ways to save gas and minimize emissions. Here are some of the things which have been saving petrol since Henry Ford was revving up his first assembly line:

1) Drive less. OK, this is sort of a no-brainer, but I want to point out a few things which it’s easy to forget when you’re driving a hybrid. First of all, just because you’re getting a great average mileage doesn’t mean you’re saving gas. In my case, I have a choice of how to go to work. I can drive about four miles along city streets, suffering through stop and go traffic, or about 8 miles down the freeway. My Honda gets better average mileage on the freeway, of course – but not twice as good a mileage. So, to save gasoline, I should take the city streets and let my average mileage – and my ego – suffer for it.

2) Live closer to work. This is really old school. I have, for years, planned my living arrangements to be as close to work as possible, even if it costs a little more or ends up with a few less square feet. Ironically, because any car is less efficient when you first start it, this behavior causes me to log worse MPG than if I lived 100 miles from work. But, I console myself in knowing I burn less gas overall.

3) Ride a bike or walk or… something other than start up the car. I like to think any day I don’t drive the car is a good day. And, think of it this way: it doesn’t improve your mileage, but it doesn’t make it any worse either. And it sure as heck saves gas.

4) Always drive downhill with the wind at your tailpipe. Just kidding; but it would be nice, wouldn’t it?

5) Drive with a friend – or two. There are several good postings on this site about maximizing your people-miles per gallon through carpooling or vanpooling or even motorscooterpooling. The more people you pack into your Prius when you drive across town, the more fuel you’re saving. (Unless you don’t really need to go across town and apply option 1 above). If you watch your mileage meter very carefully, you’ll see you are getting worse vehicle MPG with all those people adding weight to your car, but would you rather have your friends follow you in their SUVs or their 1970s Chevelle?

6) Slow down. All you hypermilers out there know something the rest of us seem to forget: even an Insight won’t get over 50 MPG at 100 MPH unless you drop it off a cliff. If you want to get good mileage, your foot has to be as light as a feather and you have to accept that many other vehicles will pass you as you proceed on your journey. This is perhaps the hardest lesson for the young readers in the audience to understand. It’s difficult to be more interested in MPG than MPH as a young person, but I hope you all give it a try.

And that’s it. Those of you paying particularly close attention will see that options 2), 3) and 5) above are really just other ways of expressing 1). Driving less is the best way to make a significant dent in the amount of petroleum you burn and the amount of hydrocarbons you emit into the atmosphere. Hybrid owners sometimes are so focused on the good they do when they drive, they forget the good they could do if they drove less. Or, worse, they don’t forget: they think owning a hybrid makes it OK to drive all they want. So, do more than your share to save the world. Get not only great miles per gallon; get fewer miles per day, week, month and year.

Mary Jane Author of the soon-to-be bestseller Fate ISBN 0-595-18985-7 Available from bn.com or amazon.com Order it today. Or tomorrow. Whatever works for you.