Walk Up Instead of Drive Thru

You'll save a bit of cash.

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Photo: Marilyn Nieves / Istock

By Brian Clark Howard

When you are picking up food, going to the bank or even filling a prescription, park your vehicle and walk inside instead of using the drive through (aka drive thru). It will cut down on unnecessary fuel use as well as carbon emissions.

Every time you use a drive through, you burn about 18 cents worth of gas idling your car. According to Quick Service Restaurant Magazine, the average drive through wait time once the order is taken is three minutes. Add the minute or two that it takes to place the order, and that means one billion car-minutes spent idling each year in front of Burger King restaurants alone! Estimates for total fuel costs for idling in front of every drive through in America are in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Parking your car and getting out also allows an opportunity to stretch your legs. Given the obesity epidemic in this country, any chance to get your body moving is also nothing to scoff at. Getting out also gives you the chance to throw away garbage, so you will be less tempted to toss litter out your window later on.

Some people have argued that drive throughs save on energy because they allow establishments to have smaller dining areas (or eliminate them altogether.) But others question such logic. If enough people declined to use drive throughs, new facilities would instead be designed with walk-up (and bike-up) windows. Plus, using centralized electricity is typically far cleaner than auto exhaust. The environmental arguments against drive throughs are so compelling that a number of smog-choked cities, including Atlanta, are even considering banning them.

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