Chapter 15

Eco-Driving & Environment

Fuel-saving driving habits, vehicle upkeep that cuts consumption, the environmental ranking of common fuels, and Belgium's low emission zones.

Do you really need the car?

Every car trip has a cost attached, in money and in fuel burned that a walk, a ride, or a bus wouldn't have needed at all. So before the key goes in the ignition, run through the alternatives: could your own two feet cover it if it's under a kilometre or so? Does a bicycle make sense for anything roughly between 1 and 10 km? Is there a bus, tram, or train that gets you there instead? Skipping the car on these shorter hops pays off twice over — a cold engine chews through noticeably more fuel per kilometre than one that's already warmed up, and starting cold again and again wears the engine down faster too.

Driving to save fuel

An aggressive driving style — working the gearbox hard and letting the revs climb — burns through fuel at a noticeably faster clip than a relaxed one. A useful benchmark: change up before the needle passes roughly 2500 rpm in a petrol engine, or around 2000 rpm in a diesel, though a steep grade or a heavily loaded car is reason enough to hang onto a lower gear a little longer than usual.

Blipping the throttle over and over while you're sitting still — say, at a red light — isn't something you're permitted to do, and that rule doesn't relax in winter just because you're trying to get the engine warm faster.

Weight and aerodynamics

Fuel consumption climbs in step with whatever weight you're hauling — make it a habit to look through the boot every so often for things riding along that you don't actually need there.
An empty roof box or rack is still fighting the wind up there — once its job is done, take it back off rather than leaving it mounted out of convenience.
Strap a bike to a rear-mounted carrier rather than hoisting it onto the roof — up there it sits squarely in the airflow and drags far more than it would tucked in behind the car.
An open window at speed drags on the car and burns extra fuel to compensate — reach for the fan or the air conditioning instead if you want to stay comfortable without the penalty.
Anything electrical you're not actually using is still pulling power from the engine — air conditioning, seat warmers, the heated rear window, the fan — so switch off whatever you don't currently need.

Vehicle upkeep that saves fuel

Stick to the tyre pressure your manufacturer specifies, and check it cold rather than after driving; nudge it up a little when you're carrying a heavy load or heading out on a long trip. Straying too far in either direction, too soft or too firm, raises your odds of aquaplaning.
A tyre that's worn down badly doesn't get a second life through re-cutting the tread — replacing it is the only option on the table.
Skip enough maintenance — a clogged air filter is the classic example — and fuel consumption creeps up without you noticing; staying on top of servicing tends to pay for itself over time.
Mounted right after the engine sits the catalytic converter, whose job is scrubbing the exhaust stream clean of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons before any of it exits the car.
The pollution from exhaust doesn't stop at what comes straight out of the pipe — exposed to open air and sunlight, some of those compounds go on to react and produce ozone, adding a second pollutant down at ground level.
Anticipate standing still for longer than roughly half a minute — held up at a level crossing is a typical case — and cutting the engine is the more efficient move than letting it idle.

Fuel choice

What goes in the tank shapes a car's environmental footprint just as much as how it's driven. LPG and CNG generally come out ahead as the cleanest of the common choices, with petrol trailing behind them; when diesel is what you're stuck with, the low-sulphur version is the lesser polluter compared to the standard kind.

Don't confuse low-sulphur diesel with red diesel: red diesel is heavily-taxed heating and off-road fuel, dyed so inspectors can spot it, and using it in a car on public roads is illegal and heavily fined. Only ordinary ("white") diesel, sold at regular pumps, may go in a road vehicle's tank.

Low emission zones

F117 — start of a low emission zone (LEZ)

F118 — end of a low emission zone (LEZ)

EURO 6 — allowed

EURO 2 — not allowed

A low emission zone, or LEZ, marks out an area — Antwerp, Ghent, and Brussels all run one at present — where vehicles falling short of a set emission standard are simply turned away, all in service of keeping the local air cleaner. Where your own vehicle stands on that scale is spelled out by its EURO rating, which you'll find printed right on the registration certificate.

A higher EURO standard number means a cleaner vehicle. Belgium also publishes an independent "ecoscore" for passenger cars, a single number from 0 to 100 that weighs greenhouse gas, air-quality, and noise impact together — the higher the ecoscore, the more environmentally friendly the car.

Car-sharing

Car-sharing ("autodelen" in Dutch, "voitures partagées" in French) doesn't mean several people riding together to the same destination — that's carpooling. It means booking a shared car in advance for the specific time you need it, then freeing it up for someone else afterwards, so a single vehicle serves many households instead of sitting parked and unused most of the time.

Petrol stations and charging points

Pull up to most fuel or charging stations and you'll find each pump or point labelled with its own pictogram — petrol/diesel, LPG, CNG, LNG, hydrogen, or electricity — letting you spot the right one for your vehicle before you've even parked.

A dedicated charging bay is marked by a parking sign carrying an electric-car pictogram; an arrow sub-plate under it (pointing left, right, or both) shows exactly which side of the sign the reserved spaces are on, the same way arrows work under ordinary parking signs.

Chapter quiz

Check what you remember. Questions and answer order are shuffled every attempt, and you'll have 20 seconds to answer each one.