How Expensive are Kids-- Part IV -- Driving

We did something very strange when we had our 3rd child -- we downsized our car. We had been driving an Oldsmobile. We sold it and bought a Hyundai. I like the Hyundai. It gets great mileage (on our recent South Padre trip we got about 400 miles to a tank) and the price was right. It doesn't seem to cause any serious problems (knock wood). BUT it is very uncomfortable and 3 car seats barely fit in the back.

3 car seats
When the 3rd child was on her way, I spent a LOT of time searching the internet for cars that would fit 3 car seats because not all of them do. Even then, I searched the dimensions of the car seats and did some crazy shopping with a measuring tape to find the perfect combination that would fit in the back of our car. It works -- barely. What helps is to have a car seat that fastens in front of the child (harness) rather than a booster for as long as possible. We tried to move our 4 yo into a booster seat but found it impossible to fasten the seatbelt.

So what does this have to do with being green?

Having 3 young children really affects car choice. You can't buy a really small car because all the car seats won't fit. I guess you could buy a hybrid SUV, but it's probably better just to have a regular car (and certainly easier on the wallet). Our budget for a car was around 5000, so we got as green as we could given our needs -- we could NOT fit in a car any smaller -- even 1 inch smaller in the back seat would not work.

It also affects the need for driving. For example, yesterday I took my kids to a really awesome park with spurting fountains (it's 95 degrees... we needed water). It is 3 miles away. Here were my options:

a. Bike to park with girls in trailer. J (6 yo) rides his own bike.
PRO: totally green
CON: OMG it's SO hot. J would cry and probably refuse to ride home. His limit is about 1.5 miles at a time.

b. Take the bus.
PRO: pretty darn green.
CON: have to walk .5 miles to bus stop and then bus does not go directly to park. Probably need to walk .75 miles at other end = crying and heat. Would take at least 1 hour to get there (and then another hour back)

c. Drive
PRO: fast, no crying, go directly to park
CON: car is really hot
drove 6 miles

These are not great choices. What did I do?

I drove

I guess there's also:

d. Don't go.

But I do that a lot. This was a special treat.