Public vehicles should be driven in public interest

I was driving down the highway the other day, my cruise control set to 55 mph, when a car whizzed past me doing 70 or 75 mph. I glanced up and saw that it had official state plates.

I was in town, making a left turn at an intersection, when a car cut in front of me. I noticed that this one bore the official county seal.

I was driving by a city work crew last summer and noticed two municipal vehicles idling with their windows rolled up. No doubt the air conditioners were running, keeping the cars cool so that the inspectors or bosses could get back into comfortably precooled vehicles.

I was at a stoplight sitting next to a city-owned truck. When the light turned green, that truck took off as if it had been shot from a cannon.

City, county, state and federal vehicles don’t belong to these faceless governmental entities, any more than they belong to the men and women who drive them. They belong to you and me, the taxpayers. And many of the people who drive these vehicles — not all, mind you, but many — don’t seem to care how they treat them, presumably because they don’t own them.

I care. Those are my cars and trucks, the same way they’re your cars and trucks. That’s our money those irresponsible drivers are wasting — not the city’s, not the county’s, not the state’s, not even Uncle Sam’s, but ours. Yours and mine.

Countless gallons of fuel are wasted because the drivers of these public vehicles don’t care about, don’t practice or aren’t aware of proper driving techniques … though I’ll bet they’re more efficiency-minded after work, when they’re driving home in their own vehicles. Who pays for the fuel they waste all day? You got it.

Every driver of every government-owned vehicle should be required to drive with both safety and conservation in mind. That means no breaking the speed limit and no pedal-to-the-metal antics. It means no unnecessary car-wasting or fuel-wasting maneuvers, and above all no unsafe driving of any kind.

Many drive that way simply because we let them get away with it. No one seems to care. I do, though. It pains me to see my tax dollars wasted. It pains me to see finite resources consumed unnecessarily. And, in an era when saving gasoline is not only financially prudent and environmentally sensible but also an act of patriotism, it pains me to see so many people ignoring all of the above.

More stringent training is needed for drivers in the public trust. The Department of Energy’s Driver Energy Conscious Awareness Training program broke the ice a few years ago — I was involved with the launch of DECAT — by teaching various local and federal employees how to drive more efficiently. But the program needs reinforcement and constant vigilance.

Anyone who routinely drives a public vehicle should be required to undergo periodic driving tests for safety and energy conservation. Programs promoting safety, economy and car conservation are necessary.

Every driver entrusted with a public vehicle should be required to set a good example in all of these areas. If violations are reported, the offenders should lose their right to drive for a specified period. Too harsh? No way — not if we’re serious about getting rid of these wasteful, dangerous habits.

There is so much waste in other areas that some things may appear to be insignificant or not worth the bother. Maybe this is one of them. But it seems to me that safety on our roads, saving our precious fuel, conserving our public vehicles and putting previously wasted money to work elsewhere might indeed be worth the bother.