With gas prices relentlessly soaring, Americans are being forced to rethink their driving habits. Many are combining trips, driving less or shifting to mass transit.
Then there are the “hypermilers,” drivers who strive to boost their gas mileage by changing their behavior behind the wheel.
They include Kent Johnson, who was found recently at a parking lot outside Laurel, Md., leaning against his red Chevy Aveo hatchback, holding his right shoe.
He had driven there with one shoe off, the one for the accelerator foot, “so you can feel the pedal pressure a little bit easier,” he explains. “You know, when you’re trying to eke that extra little bit, then, just small things can add up.”
Most of Johnson’s techniques are simple: Slow down, ease up on the accelerator, coast in neutral down hills.
“I drive with my shoe off ”” that’s extreme,” he says.
Another reminder of how higher prices really do promote conservation. Painful, yes. But better than la-la land alternatives like suspending gas taxes.
I certainly hope I don’t encounter any “hypermilers” around here. Coasting down a hill in neutral is not only dangerous, but in Texas it is ILLEGAL. So is driving barefoot, although that one doesn’t make sense to me….I’m more comfortable on long trips without shoes.
I’m surprised that guy doesn’t tailgate semis to be pulled along by the suction, that’s proven to save gas too.
In his effort to save a few bucks he puts everyone else on the road in danger.
#2. Grace, Just for laughs, let me note the driving regulations in FL also prohibit coasting down hills in neutral — just goes to show that everything has to be regulated. (The highest hill in FL is Britton Hill, at 345 feet above sea level. It probably rises a full 200 feet from the surrounding terrain.) But, I do agree with you that going down real hills and mountains should NEVER be done in neutral. It really is unsafe.
All that said, good, smooth driving techniques with minimal heavy duty brake usage, and reduced speeds really does increase efficiency. Wind resistance increases as the square of speed, so it is 4x greater at 80mph compared to 40mph. Keeping speed down a little can help a lot at the pump.
Best wishes, –Stan
I was laughed at by quite a lot of people in Tennessee when I bought my first hybrid in January 2003 and started sipping rather than guzzling gas — which in those days was a lot cheaper than it is in the USA now. Living in England now I, of course, drive a hybrid. Not only are my carbon emissions lower than with a conventional engine, I am also managing up to 56 miles per gallon on the open road and 45-47 on the clogged roads of Cambridge. By the way, I would love gas at the giveaway price of $4 or so per gallon. When I tanked up yesterday evening I did so for an amazingly cheap $8.77 for a US gallon at one of the less expensive filling stations in town.
There’s a safety reason for not driving barefoot. You use the same foot for the brake, and a barefoot may not brake as quickly as one with a shoe on it.
Ireneaus, there’s a good reason why supending the gas tax is unlikely to happen; it would alert people to how much they are being taxed: always a bad idea from a government standpoint.
RichardKew: How nice for you that you had the $$$ available to buy a hybrid. Unfortunately, they are overpriced and therefore out of reach of average working people. Several friends of mine have driven them for years, and all are beginning to face another major problem: what to do when the battery wears out? They are massively expensive to replace, and good grief, talk about a problem for landfills.
Hybrids are a step ahead, but only a small one. Years ago, American R&D;should have been unleashed onto this problem, with all the force (including tax incentives) we could muster. Instead, since 2003, something like NINE TRILLION dollars of our taxpayer cash has gone to defense contractors and corrupt Iraqis for an imbecilic war.
The next Administration (whomever heads it) has a terrible mess to clean up.
Years ago, we did pledge to find alternate energy methods. Then OPEC lowered the price of oil, or rather stepped up production, and the need went away.
This time, there is a slightly different situation:
India, China, Pakistan and other developing countries are all clamouring for more oil, and willing to pay high prices for it.
NOW there is a real incentive for development, but it will take time to make it reliable and affordable for everyone. So until then, we are at the mercy of the price at the pump.
Unless we petition and protest in front of Congress and insist that they open up more domestic production and build more refineries, that is.
libraryjim, today it is a different problem, since India & China and the rest of the developing world will very soon be guzzling gasoline like the rest of us! Alas, American consumers are also hit by: the nearly 40% drop in the value of the dollar over the past 7-8 years (the Iraq War has propelled our deficit to nearly 9 TRILLION and that has kindled a speculative fever on the commodities markets. Would that it was ONLY a problem of development, but it is NOT. The policies of the current Administration are at the heart of our terrible problems today; whomever is elected our President has a terrible burden to bear because of Cheney/GWBush and the Neocon push to an ill-considered war of occupation in a Middle Eastern country.
Just for the record, I consider the war justified, and think Bush and co. are not doing that bad a job. Congress currently has an approval rating of around 12%, half that of the President. And it has been under this Democratic controlled congress that we suddenly find gas prices doubled, and the dollar dropping. It didn’t happen for the last 6 years, only now. what is different? Democrats in power in Congress.
Just my opinion based on listening to reasonable radio hosts instead of hysterical party-line ‘mainstream’ media reports. 😉