How the Drive Less Challenge Works
The Drive Less Challenge is a friendly social competition to do less solo driving. It starts on Earth Day April 22 to May 5.
You keep track of how you get from place to place, and take opportunities to bike, walk, carpool and take transit instead of driving alone in a car. You can set a personal goal for the amount of Green Travel.
And for the most fun, you can participate with groups you identify (school, work, church/synagogue, neighborhood…). You can help your group to stand out! And you can compete to be the best in your group. You’ll see how you’re your group is doing compared to others, and how you’re doing compared to people in your group. There are lots of fun prizes! There are many ways to win, because there are many great ways to drive less!
Prizes will be awarded for:
* most green travel (biking, walking, transit, carpool – most miles and most trips!)
* greenest group (workplace, school, faith community, etc)
* least driving (you need to log every day to be eligible for this)
* greatest green improvement (you need to add your “baseline” to be eligible for this prize)
When we pay attention to what we do every day, we see and take opportunities to change.
Click here to sign up now!
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I set up a group and log my trips? Click “Take the Challenge” button to set up your group, profile, goals, log your trips, and track progress.
It’s after Earth Day. Can I still participate? YES! This Drive Less Challenge runs from Thursday, April 22 thru Wednesday, May 5. You can sign up any time during that period. Let’s say you sign up on Friday April 22. You can enter your trips for Thursday and Friday.
I don’t have a car? Can I participate? YES! If you don’t have a car, and know ways to get around without driving, then your participation is extra-valuable since there are many ways you can teach others and be a role model for others. You’re in a great position to win prizes. And you can tell your stories that others can learn from.
What if I work from home? We’ll have prizes for doing the least driving – so if you work from home, there are prizes for people like you. You can avoid the car for other travel and be a great role model. Consider telling your story about things you do to work from home and help others succeed.
Should I log my trips driving alone? YES! The goal of the Drive Less Challenge isn’t for everyone to get rid of their car – that’s not realistic for most people. We want to challenge each other to Drive Less, and to measure the amount of progress we make, by tracking car trips as well as alternatives to driving alone.
What if I use a car and bus or bike for a trip? Separate the trip part done by car, bike, bus, etc into separate trip log entries so that we give accurate credit for the green miles and CO2 emissions avoided for that trip.
How do you calculate how many pounds of CO2 I saved if you don’t know what I drive? The goal of the drive less challenge is to help people take opportunities to drive less but to do that we make a tradeoff between making it easy to take the challenge, and making precise measurements of carbon saved. So we’ve simplified data entry for participants and our calculations by approximating a given participant’s actual CO2 emissions saved using the average emissions per mile for a typical car in California (the “Drove Car Alone” mode) and subtracting the average rate for a typical trip using an alternative, green mode of transport like bus, train, or carpool.
Why are hybrids and electric cars treated the same as other cars? We are using the Car category as an approximation that may not closely reflect a given participant’s situation, but the Drive Less Challenge is meant to generally encourage less solo driving of relatively large, heavy vehicles powered by non-renewable fuels in broadest sense. We group all these vehicles as cars because they fit in the car profile in the US from a fuel / energy efficiency standpoint; average of 23 to 24 mpg in California, and ranging from 12 to 50 mpg. This includes hybrid/electric equivalents from a CO2 emissions perspective since the electricity used to charge them if they plug in, largely comes from CO2 (and other pollution) emitting power plants which generate most of their power from coal and natural gas in the US.. All such vehicles emit excessive amounts of CO2 and other pollution per person when driven alone because they are made large and heavy and built for multiple people to travel in them at highway speeds.
What if I drive a motorcycle? Use the “Drove Car Alone” category for logging trips if you use a typical motorcycle or motor scooter. The real problem is that motorcycles and scooters tend to generate much more harmful smog-forming pollutants than cars because of their less efficient engine types and the lack of relevant EPA standards for these vehicles. From a miles per gallon / CO2 perspective, gas powered motorcycles are not even very good (unofficially most motorcycles on the street are in the 25- 45 mpg range).
May 2, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Question from Heyward Robinson:
A friend at work asked about getting credit for telecommuting (and in general trips not taken). Can we add this category next year?
May 2, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Answer: For this running of the challenge, it’s too late to add features.
But if you don’t drive, that certainly shows up in the amount of miles you travelled, and if you filled out a your baseline, then you can see the change as improvement compared to your goal.
Avoiding a trip is certainly a great way to reduce carbon emissions – would you like to share a story about how you use telecommuting to avoid driving? You can post on the website at http://drivelesschallenge.com – click Share Your STory.