Should I be ashamed to say....

[Crankin]

My husband still has his Lexus SUV. Of course, he bought a Miyata to compensate for the crappy gas mileage. The Miyata gets 30 mpg, so he uses it most of the year, but it gets parked in the winter, when it's snowy or icy. We still use the SUV for hauling around 4 bikes, a canoe, 4 people, and luggage quite a few times during the year. Also, we use it for hauling landscaping and home repair stuff. Around here, it's not so much that you need a truck, but you need a car with 4 wheel drive or AWD. I just happen to have a smaller sedan with AWD. Now I know some people get a long perfectly fine without all wheel drive, but personally, I won't drive in the winter without it. When my driveway, which is a 15% grade, is covered with snow with 2 inches of ice below it, I need all the help I can get, especially the cool "descending" assist that guides you down a steep and slippery hill without having to put your foot on the gas.
Other than the Lexus, we are pretty green around our house. We recycle, bring our own bags to the grocery store, and have had all the windows replaced in our house to cut fuel usage (it really worked). I have cut my driving tremendously, not so much because I am commuting, although I do do some errands by bike, but because I have really stopped going places far away for shopping. Everything I do is within a 7-8 mile radius. I take the train to my classes, so I only drive 8 miles round trip on those days. But, even when I was driving to work, I still drove way less than most of my peers. My car is 5.5 years old and has 40,000 miles on it.

[Tuckervill]

(Oh, I wish I could have a car with low mileage! My 2 yo Element rolled over 63,000 on my trip east last month.)

We have an energy saving car in the driveway, a '96 Honda Civic that belonged to my middle son and is now my youngest's, who is still too young to drive it. We keep it insured and licensed so we can have a car for zipping around town. It gets 38 mpg, still, at its age.

My husband is very tall, with flexibility issues in his hips, so our cars will always have to accommodate that. I wanted a Honda Fit but he doesn't fit. He fits in the Civic, and can drive it, but it is uncomfortable. He fits in the Element, but doesn't like to drive it. All of our cars need to be usable by him--you never know when we may be down to one car.

His personal vehicle is an F150, his first truck. Before that he drove big sedans, like a Grand Marquis. The truck and the sedans get roughly the same gas mileage (and they're making the sedans smaller now), so we might as well have a truck, which is more useful. I don't feel guilty about it. His hips will disable him some day, and there's no reason for him to be uncomfortable while he drives.

Me, on the other hand--I drive 5 miles below the speed limit to save gas, and got my Element up to 28 mpg on this last trip!

Karen

[Pax]

I got 92mpg on my scooter last week...as opposed to the crappy 16mpg I got shopping with my Jeep. I'm going to try to ride that dang scooter until it snows!

[Aggie_Ama]

Well my car was purchased in April 2006 and has 55,000 miles on it. We travel, a lot. In a good month we are home less weekends than we are gone, it makes us happy. Happy people are healthier, right? The truck has 18,000 on it but we did 3,000 miles of that on trips the car would not have been appropriate for. Of course his last truck started to get 18-22 mpg after he broke the engine in (after 30k) so we are hoping that might happen. The fuel displacement on the Dodge Hemi is a load of BS for fuel savings though (changes to 4 cylinder on the highway).

My husband is 6'2" so truly most fuel efficient cars will not work for him comfortably. He drives the Caliber but he has to put the seat completely back and only have 1" clearance for his head. Me? I could drive a mousetrap since I stopped growing at 12 (a towering 5'2").

[sundial]

I'm going to try to ride that dang scooter until it snows!

LOL!

Newspaper......I'm going to cancel my subscription. The writing is horrible.
And may as well cancel cable t.v. too. Oh wait, can't get ABC on the dish network. Gotta watch LOST you know.

[crazybikinchic]

I love driving a truck. I will drive a truck over a car any day. I do not like having to crawl out of a car when I can step out of a truck.

Trucks are fun

[coyote]

I haven't had to drive a car to work in close to 10 years. I do drive on the weekends but I do so little driving now it is not comfortable. I would love to do all my weekend errands on the bike but I haven't convinced my DH yet. So, that will come one of these days in the future.

[emily_in_nc]

My guilty "pleasure" (tho it's certainly not that): a 60-mile round-trip commute to work. I do work at home once a week when I am able to, but I still feel bad driving that much. And we drive to our sailboat, 3.25 hours each way, for vacations. Bad, but not as bad as the pre-boat vacations we used to take, which usually involved driving to Florida, New England, and such.

DH and I try to make up for our carbon footprint by recycling ferociously, using compact fluorescents all over the house (the newer ones really do have a warmer light, I was surprised), re-using as much as possible, not purchasing junk we don't need, composting, growing some of our own veggies, buying locally whenever possible, and all that good stuff. But I sure wish I could bike to work. Hopefully someday -- our life-long goal is to be car-free eventually.