At 7:22 on a Monday morning I watched the Civic back out of the driveway with both of my kids in it. Garrett at the wheel, Lainey in the passenger seat with her volleyball bag on her lap and her earbuds already in. I stood in the kitchen window longer than I needed to. Then I got in the truck and went to work, because that's the job.
That was two weeks ago. Garrett is a senior now, Lainey is a freshman, and for the first time they're at the same school. So the Civic took over the school run, and I've had two weeks of notebook entries to see what it did to the rest of the family's driving.
How the mornings changed
Last year Tina drove Lainey to the middle school every morning on her way to the flower shop downtown, and Garrett either rode with her or got himself there. It was a 7:15 departure, a pickup line, then a crosstown run to the shop. Afternoons, she'd leave work early to get Lainey to volleyball practice.
Now Garrett takes his sister to school every morning and brings her home or to practice in the afternoon when he's not working. He has closing shifts at the grocery store three nights a week, and on those days Tina still covers practice pickup. The arrangement has three rules, and they're the same house rules he's had since the day he got his license: phone in the console, text when you get there, and no more than two non-family passengers even though the state now lets him carry three.
He hit six months on his intermediate license at the end of July, which is when Missouri raises the passenger limit from one to three. Lainey is family, so she never counted against the limit anyway. The two-passenger rule is ours, not the state's, and Garrett has only argued about it twice.
The biggest change is for Tina. She now leaves for the shop at 7:45 instead of 7:15, and she gets to drive straight there. She says she drinks her coffee at home now, in a mug instead of a travel cup, and that she'd forgotten what that was like.
What it did to the van's miles
For the first two weeks, the Sienna's notebook shows about 90 fewer miles than the same two weeks would have been last year. Projected out, that's about 180 fewer miles a month. Here's the math:
- Van miles saved: about 180 a month
- At the van's 18 mpg in town: about 10 gallons
- At about $3.09 a gallon: about $31 a month
The Civic is going the same direction Garrett was going anyway, so most of those miles didn't move to his car. They just disappeared. The few extra miles are the afternoon practice runs, maybe 60 a month. At the Civic's 32 mpg, that's under two gallons, about $6. Net savings on gas: about $25 a month.
That's not the most important saving, though. The van is at about 204,300 miles. It's 15 years old, and we're planning to keep it through the coming winter. Every mile it doesn't drive is a mile closer to getting through that winter without a big repair. 180 miles a month, over a school year, is 1,600 miles the van doesn't put on.
Garrett has paid for his own gas since he started working in June. That was the deal when he got the car. But taking his sister to school isn't his errand, it's the family's, so we give him $20 a month toward gas. He thought that was fair. Lainey thought she should get a cut for being good company. Nobody took her up on it.
Two weeks in
It's going well. Garrett has been on time every morning. Lainey has complained about the radio every morning. Tina has had coffee at her own kitchen table every morning. I check the texts at work: "here," every day at about 7:34. It's a two-word habit that does more for me than it should.
I won't pretend it doesn't make me a little nervous, both kids in one small car. But Garrett is a careful driver. His driving-score app numbers are better than mine, which I'll deny if anyone asks. And the Civic goes in next month for rear brakes and a clunk up front I want looked at, so it won't be carrying them around on worn parts.
The van gets a lighter load. Tina gets her mornings back. Garrett gets a little gas money and a sense of being useful. Lainey gets a ride with her brother, which she'll pretend to hate for another three years and then miss.