When you hop into your car every day, is your first thought about the rubber underneath you? This thought should be high up on your list of concerns when you get in your car every day. Not just for the factor of safety (which is very important) but also because the incorrect tire pressure can lower your gas mileage and increase your carbon dioxide emissions. Both of these things can be negative pressures on the environment.
Those PSI (pounds per square inch of air) numbers on your car door jamb are put there by the manufacturer for a reason. If your tire is not round like it should be, then your car has to work harder and exert more energy to get in motion and stay in motion. According to fueleconomy.gov, when your tires are off by 1 PSI, your gas mileage is lowered by .3 percent. You can improve your gas mileage by 3.3 percent when you keep the tires inflated at the proper pressure. These numbers might not sound like much, but if you do the math then you see that average person who drives 12,000 miles yearly on under-inflated tires uses about 144 extra gallons of gas!
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the typical car in the United States releases more than five tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. By keeping tires properly inflated, you can reduce your vehicle's carbon footprint by an average of 327 pounds per year. This is just proof that every little bit we do, even if it just includes checking tire pressure, can snowball to either harm us or help us.
