You Have Legs – Use Them!

I came across a statistic the other day that should be quite shocking but I actually wasn’t surprised at all. Here it is:

Roughly a quarter of all car journeys are less than 2 miles in distance.

The exact figures from the National Transport Survey 2011 (published December 2012) are slightly different for drivers (22%) and passengers (25%) but each person racks up, on average, 36 car journeys of less than 1 mile and 106 of between 1 and 2 miles per year.

Apart from those people who have genuine mobility problems, I question just how many of these trips really require a car. At a good walking pace you can travel a mile in 15 minutes and it would probably take you at least 5 minutes in a car so are those 10 minutes really that precious to you?

The graph below shows the CO₂ emissions by journey distance and type and while the shorter journeys only account for a small proportion of the whole, are we saying that we are willing to look the other way in spite of what looks like a good 3 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions from journeys under 2 miles?

Source: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm76/7682/7682.pdf

It looks as though shopping is one of the main reasons for driving short journeys and I do understand this to an extent. A weekly grocery shop is likely to require a car but I’m willing to bet that there are people who take the car even when they only need to pick up a bag or two of shopping.

The light blue commuting bar is interesting because I reckon quite a lot of those journeys are to and from a train station in the morning and evening (looking around the office I can identify at least 2 people who do this every workday). If you already face a long commute I know it can be tempting to save some time this way but think of the money you’d save in parking, fuel and general wear and tear (your car engine does not perform efficiently for short journeys) by walking or cycling to catch your train.

How Many KGs Could You Save?

Let’s take the example of those commuters and assume that the journey is 1 mile each way to and from the station. In an average car that equates to 669g of CO₂e a day and based on a 5 day working week with 4 weeks holiday a year, that trip to and from the station is contributing 161kg to your carbon footprint each year.

Taking a 10 tonne lifestyle as an average, this short journey each day is 1.61% of your annual carbon footprint.

If we take the exact figures from the survey, and let’s assume a mid-point figure for the actual distances travelled (in other words I’ll take 0.5 miles and 1.5 miles as the actual distances travelled) then we get to 177 miles travelled in car journeys of under 2 miles each year. It works out at just over 59kg a year or 0.59% of a 10 tonne lifestyle.

Even if everyone only switched from car to foot/bike for half of those journeys it would come to roughly 1.77 million tonnes of CO₂e saved each year in the UK; a small percentage of the whole but one that is surely worth going after?

Are you guilty of driving when you could walk or cycle? Are you going to try and give up these short car journeys? Leave a comment below.

Steve (156 Posts)

I am chief writer and editor on Green Steve. Blogging since 2011, I like to delve into a wide number of topics to help people reduce their carbon footprint. You should follow me on Twitter here. And add me to your Google+ circles here.

Hire Me - did you enjoy this post? Let me write thought provoking environmental and green living articles for your website or blog