When driving your own personal vehicle around the area where you live and work, you likely know of the best places to fill it up with fuel and to put air in your tires to keep them properly inflated — you might even own your own air pump — but when renting a vehicle while traveling, you likely do not know where to find fuel stations which have the best prices for gasoline or diesel; so you would use a tool such as GasBuddy…
Where to Get Free Air For Your Tires: Earth Day 2022
…but did you know that a similar tool exists for finding free air instead of having to pay up to $1.50 each time those tires need to be filled?
“Are you fed up with paying $0.75 to $1.50 just to fill up one of your tires? Think it’s ridiculous to have to swipe your credit card to get access to something that should be free? FreeAirPump.com provides a map of locations that offer free air for tires”, according to this statement at the official Internet web site of FreeAirPump.com. “The FreeAirPump.com map contains plenty of gas stations that have free air for autos. For bicyclists, you can also find numerous bike repair stations or stand alone bike pumps listed.”
Like GasBuddy for fuel, FreeAirPump.com is a tool which uses crowdsourcing for people to find where to fill up tires with free air — but what does air for tires have to do with the environment?
“About 40% of the 5 million cars on Minnesota roads don’t have properly inflated tires”, according to this article from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which also gives some useful tips and advice on how to keep tires properly inflated. “Those cars are spewing out up to 306,000 extra tons of carbon dioxide per year because their tires are under-inflated. These emissions directly contribute to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Reduce pollution by keeping your tires at the proper pressure.”
Moreover, motorists can save up to ten cents per gallon of gasoline simply by keeping tires properly inflated.
“More than a quarter of automobiles and about a third of light trucks (including sport utility vehicles, vans, and pickup trucks) on the roadways of the United States have one or more tires underinflated 8 pounds per square inch (psi) or more below the level recommended by the vehicle manufacturer,” according to a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the Department of Transportation of the United States. “A decrease in tire pressure can be caused by poor maintenance, driving habits, punctures, road conditions, and the quality of material used in tire construction. According to tire experts, under normal driving conditions, air-filled tires can lose from 1 to 2 psi per month as air permeates through the tires. Vehicles with underinflated tires have had handling problems that caused crashes resulting in fatalities and injuries. In addition, the fuel economy of vehicles driving on underinflated tires is slightly lower.”
Some states in the United States — such as Connecticut, California, and New York — have laws which require fuel stations which offer air to customers to access the air at no charge.
Final Boarding Call
The reason why I wrote this article is because I rented a car recently to drive long distances — and the rear tire on the passenger side of the car kept slowly losing air to cause the on-board system indicator to alert me of the low pressure. I did manage to find air without paying for it several times — I did not have time to take the car to a location of the rental car company to have the tire repaired or the vehicle switched out — which caused me to wonder if a tool exists to help consumers find fuel stations which offer free air.
Sure enough, one does exist — and I hope that it is of some benefit to you.
Other articles at The Gate which pertain to Earth Day include:
- Is There Any Hope For Plastic Recycling? Earth Day 2021
- Earth Day 2020: 6 Ways to Conserve Water — Especially During a Pandemic
- Earth Day 2020: Clean the World by Recycling Used Soap and Plastic Bottles
- Earth Day 2020: More Littering of Contaminated Gloves and Masks From the 2019 Novel Coronavirus
- Earth Day 2020: Should Single Use Plastics Be Eliminated at Hotels Worldwide After All? 2019 Novel Coronavirus Pandemic
- Accor to Eliminate Single Use Plastics Worldwide in All Hotels By 2022
- Hyatt Hotels Corporation to Replace Smaller Plastic Amenities Packages and Water Bottles Worldwide
- Ban of Single Use Plastic Toiletry Bottles at Hotels to Become Law in California
- Bulk Amenities to Replace Bathroom Miniature Packages Across All Brands of Marriott International, Incorporated
- Bulk Amenities to Replace Bathroom Miniature Packages Across All Brands of InterContinental Hotels Group
- Miniature Toiletry Bottles in Hotels: What Really Should Be Done
- Wall Mounted Dispensers Versus Small Bottles of Amenities in Hotels
- Sale of Single Use Disposable Plastic Water Bottles Banned by San Francisco International Airport
- We Ingest Enough Plastic to Eat One Credit Card Per Week
- Single Use Plastic Toiletry Bottles at Hotels to Become Illegal in New York?
- Single Use Plastic Toiletry Bottles at Hotels to Become Illegal in California?
- Stupid Tip of the Day: Use Recycling Bins Whenever Possible
- Earth Day 2019: Clean the World by Recycling Used Soap and Plastic Bottles
- Earth Day 2018: Clean the World by Recycling Used Soap and Plastic Bottles
- Earth Day 2017 — and What Hilton is Doing to Help Save the Environment
- …and the Overpackaging of Hotel Amenities Award Goes To…
- Microbeads: Could Your Toiletries Be Damaging the Environment?
All photographs ©2015 and ©2022 by Brian Cohen.
