Hybrid Car Ownership Drives People Together

Some hybrid car owners are starting clubs to socialize and to learn how to squeeze even more miles per gallon out of their fuel-efficient vehicles. The number of hybrid owners is still small enough that the owners feel a little “special.” The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Some hybrid car owners are starting clubs to socialize and to learn
how to squeeze even more miles per gallon out of their fuel-efficient
vehicles. The number of hybrid owners is still small enough that the
owners feel a little “special.” The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Bradley Fons says he already thought about the environment a lot before he
purchased a used hybrid car three years ago. He bought a Honda Insight:


“…And I kind of figured out how to drive it to get the best mileage but there
was no support, no help out there at that point to assist me.”


Eventually, Fons found a group of hybrid owners who helped him answer
some questions about the car.


(Sound of group meeting)


But this year, with some help from his family, Fons has done one better: he’s
organized a hybrid owners club.


(Marie Fons) “…And put your name on one of these little things, for a door prize. I know, work, work, work, work, work. Here, you guys want to work on the
door prize thing?”


Bradley Fons’ wife, Marie, is helping about two dozen people check in. This
is the first meeting of the hybrid owners group. They get to know each
other by their name, their city, and the kind of hybrid they drive:


“I’m Kathy Moody from Racine and I have a ’05 Prius.”


“I’m Bill Vaness from Waukesha and I ride in my wife’s ’03 Prius (laughs).”


(Group member) “At least you’re honest.”


“My name is Sherrie Schneider, I’m from Bristol and I have an ’06 Civic. Picked it up about a month ago and I’m here to learn a lot ’cause I don’t know how to get the mileage you all
are getting but I’m going to learn (laughs).”


And so Bradley and Marie Fons go into teaching mode, offering encouragement and advice about how to get the most miles per gallon from the cars. The hybrid of gas engine and electric batteries usually cost more to buy more than similarly sized conventional cars. So the new owners are anxious about getting the best mileage possible.


Bradley Fons preaches patience. He says for new vehicles, owners have to work through
the car’s several thousand mile break-in period before they get the kind of gas
efficiency the cars can reach:


“So if you’re getting in the forties, ya know, high 40, mid 40, to low 50s in
a Prius and it’s new, don’t worry about it, ya know. It’ll come.”


Fons says some of these cars will get miles-per-gallon in the 60s and 70s. Then there are
the controversial people who’ve become what’s known as “hyper-milers,” getting 80 or 90
miles per gallon through various means that even the hyper-milers concede aren’t
completely safe.


Fons introduces Wayne Gerdes, who tells how to steer a hybrid
in the air draft right behind 18-wheel trucks:


“Hopefully you’ll understand that this close in, is this one car to one and a half second
back, that’s a dangerous area. I don’t recommend anybody doing it, but you’re gonna find
your fuel economy going through the roof on that.”


The hybrid owners club that the Fons family has organized also takes club
members out in hybrids for some lessons on the road:


“So we’ll go down, ya know, another set of streets.”


Bradley Fons sits in the front passenger seat of a Toyota hybrid. He’s
teaching a club member named Bill a driving method called the “pulse-and-
glide.” Basically, it involves only occasionally tapping the gas pedal and coasting
a lot, so that neither the car’s motor or electric battery system is operating much.


When pulse-and-glide is done right, a monitor on the dashboard reports a surge in
fuel efficiency. After some difficulty, Fons helps Bill get the hang of it:


“All right, foot totally off. Now just on a little, there you are. You’re in it, hold it,


(Bill) “Do you take your foot off when you’re in there, though?”


“No, you have to leave pressure on it. Boy, that was the longest glide you did (laughs)!”


It’s moments like these that make Bradley Fons glad he and his family are helping to
spread the hybrid car message. But Fons sees an opportunity for members of his club to
go outside the group and become pro-hybrid activists:


“Hoping dealers get more hybrid cars, working for candidates that push alternative fuels,
sustainable energy, anything that can be done…because at this point in time it hasn’t been
coming from the government. They’ve done some, but our group doesn’t feel they’ve done
enough.”


Fons says politicians should listen to hybrid owners and hybrid clubs, because they’re
offering part of the solution to America’s oil addiction.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

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The Foibles of Suburban Lawn Care

  • Although a well-manicured lawn offers certain benefits... not everyone thinks it's worth the effort. (Photo by Ed Herrmann)

One of the great rituals in suburban America is mowing the lawn. A manicured lawn seems to say that the house is well cared for, that it belongs to the neighborhood. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Ed Herrmann wonders whether this obsession for the perfect lawn is worth the effort:

Transcript

One of the great rituals in suburban America is mowing the lawn. A
manicured lawn seems to say that the house is well cared for, that it belongs
to the neighborhood. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Ed
Herrmann wonders whether this obsession with the perfect lawn is worth the
effort:


(sound of evening insects)


It’s a late summer evening and at last I can go outside and enjoy the
sounds of the neighborhood. There’s a little breeze, the air is cooler. The
chorus of insects is soothing, gentle but insistent, an ancient throbbing
resonance. Much better than during the day…


(roar of lawn machines)


Summer days in the suburbs are the time of assault, when people attack their
lawns with powerful weapons from the chemical and manufacturing
industries. Anyone who uses the words “quiet” and “suburbs” in the same
sentence has never been to a suburb, at least not in summer.


It takes a lot of noise to maintain a lawn. Besides the mower, you’ve got edgers, trimmers,
leaf blowers, weed whackers, core aerators, little tractors, big tractors, slitting
machines. I don’t know whatever happened to rakes and hand clippers. One
thing’s for sure. This quest for lawn perfection wouldn’t be possible without
the industrial revolution.


(machines stop)


So where did we get the idea that a house should be surrounded by a field of
uniform grass kept at the same height?


Well, with apologies to the Queen, I’m afraid we must blame the British. It
seems that, along with our language, our imperial ambitions and our
ambivalent morals, America also gets its notion of what a lawn should look
like from the English. Of course, the estates of the English aristocracy were
tended by a staff of gardeners. England also has a milder climate, and the
grass that looks so nice there doesn’t do as well in North America. In the
1930’s the USDA came up with a blend of imported grasses that would
tolerate our climate. Since these grasses are not native, they need help, and
that calls for fertilizers, pesticides and lots of extra water. Since normal
people can’t afford gardeners who trim by hand, that means lawn machines.
American industry to the rescue.


(mower starts up, fades under next sentence)


A quick Google tells me that today we have 40 million lawn mowers in use.
Each emits 11 times the pollution of a new car, and lawn mowers contribute
five percent of the nation’s air pollution. Plus more than 70 million pounds of
pesticides are used each year and over half of our residential water is used
for landscaping. Don’t you love those automatic sprinklers that come on in the
rain? Add to that all the time that people spend mowing and edging. Of
course the two billion dollar lawn care industry is thrilled about all this
enthusiasm, but I gotta ask, “Is it worth it?”


Call me old fashioned, but I actually prefer the looks of a meadow with mixed
wildflowers and grasses to the lawn that looks like a pool table. My own lawn
is somewhere between. It’s mowed, but it’s what you might call multicultural.


There are at least five different kinds of grass with different colors and
thicknesses, plus clover, dandelions, mushrooms, a few pinecones, and a
rabbit hole or two. There’s also some kind of nasty weed with thorns, but even
that has nice purple flowers if it gets big enough.


Clover, by the way, used to be added to grass seed because it adds nitrogen to
the soil. Now we just buy a bag of nitrogen fertilizer, so who needs clover?
And what’s wrong with
dandelions? You can eat them, some people even make wine out of them,
they have happy yellow flowers; yet to most people they indicate your yard is
out of control. So I’m down on my hands and knees pulling dandelions. I’m
not sure why, but I hope it keeps the neighbors happy.


One thing I won’t give in to, though, is the chemical spraying trucks, painted
green of course, that roll through the neighborhood.


I can only hold my breath. (sound of trucks and mowers) Try not to listen. And
wait for the evening. (evening insects)


(air conditioner starts up)


Although, with all these air conditioners, even the night’s not too quiet.


But that’s another story.


Host tag: “Ed Herrmann is an outdoor enthusiast living in the
suburbs of Detroit.”

Related Links

City Passes Controversial Pesticide Law

At least one city in the region has passed a controversial law that would ban or severely restrict the use of pesticides. Environmental activists are calling the move a great victory. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:

Transcript

At least one city in the Great Lakes region has passed a
controversial law that would ban or severely restrict the use of pesticides.
Environmental activists are calling the move a great victory. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:


For years, environmentalists have warned of the dangers associated with the overuse of
pesticides and herbicides, claiming that those chemicals are poisoning the land and
waters.


Now Toronto’s city council has passed a bylaw aimed at reducing pesticide use.


Katrina Miller of the Toronto Environmental Alliance says it’s an amazing win.


“We have a bylaw that’s going to protect children, it’s going to protect the environment.
We saw a city council that has decided to listen to the citizens of Toronto and the doctors
and nurses instead of falling under pressure from the industry lobby.”


The debate leading up to the vote was bitter and emotionally charged. One
representative of a lawn care company was ejected.


Lorne Hepworth is a spokesman for the pesticide manufacturers. He says the ones to
suffer from the new bylaw will be homeowners.


“At the end of the day what this amounts to is a deterioration in their property values,
you know, score one for bugs and dandelions and zero for the property owner.”


Under the bylaw anyone wanting to use pesticides will have to make a case to an advisory
board. It will be made up of representatives from the city, environmental groups and
lawn care companies.


The new bylaw will not be enforced until 2006.


For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.

Nature’s Complete Food Source

Just in case you’re ever stranded in the wilderness, it’s good to know
how to forage for food. But many people are learning that you don’t
have to be in dire circumstances—nor do you even have to leave home—to
go scouting out a free meal. In fact, one of nature’s most complete
food sources may be right underfoot. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Wendy Nelson reports:

Nature’s Complete Food Source

Just in case you’re ever stranded in the wilderness, it’s good to know how to forage for food. But many people are learning that you don’t have to be in dire circumstances-nor do you even have to leave home-to go scouting out a free meal. In fact, one of nature’s most complete food sources may be right underfoot. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy Nelson reports: