Bikes & Cars...

We save spotted owls, we recycle everything under the sun, and now we in Oregon can add another couple of green feathers to our caps: we love hybrid vehicles more than almost anyone, and we use less gas than most of the rest of the country. High five, Oregon!

According to a recent Cars.com survey, only San Fransicso mouse-clickers performed more hybrid-car searches on the web site than Portlanders. The top five was rounded out by more West Coast tree-hugging bastions, Seattle, Sacramento, and San Diego.

And, in a recent report released by the Sightline Institute, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho have reduced their per capita gasoline consumption by 11% over the past eight years. That's nearly a gallon a week. At 7.8 gallons per person, that's a gallon less than the national average, and a four-decade low for the Pacific Northwest. Man, we are awesome.

This is in addition to the fact that Eco-motion in Portland, Oregon, has sold more Zap electric cars than any other dealership in the country. That's a lot of patting ourselves on the back. Try not to pull a muscle, fellow Oregonians.

If you don't live in Oregon but you want to emulate our green ways, The Daily Green has posted two handy guides to getting the most out of a gallon of gasoline.

Photo by Doug Geisler.