Question for drivers.

[unbibium]

When you're out driving, how many of you routinely take steps to minimize your braking and acceleration?  It occurs to me that that's probably where the best gas savings are possible.  And if that's true, in this era of high gas prices, certainly people have thought of ways to reduce their acceleration burden.  I thought of a couple of ways to do this, and wonder if they're practical.

The first is one I've discovered while bicycling: if you speed towards a green light, and it turns yellow while you're too far away, you have to brake to a dead stop.  If you coast towards it, you might have time for it to turn red and then green again.  Your car's engine probably burns the calories for you, but on the bike, I have to burn the calories myself, and it's already 110 out there.

The second one is that traffic wave dynamics thing I read about long ago, where a car accident causes a traffic jam that persists even when the accident is cleared.  On page 2, the author asserts that you can dissipate these traffic jams, at least for the cars behind you, by slowing down as you approach, and leaving a lot of room in front of your car, as "antitraffic destroys traffic".  But it just occurred to me that this also reduces the acceleration burden on your car, since instead of going from 50 to 5 to 50, you're going steady at 40.  That saves gas in the "invisible rubbernecker" scenario, but probably not in the "have to fight to merge" scenario, as missing your exit might make you drive a few extra miles in this town.

Comments

[atillathehung.livejournal.com]

Fuck 'em. What's the point in getting to a red light quickly?

[underwhelm.livejournal.com]

how many of you routinely take steps to minimize your braking and acceleration?

Yes, particularly in traffic situations because it's always been clear to me that if I never used my brakes the guy behind me would never have to either (if he was driving with any amount of intelligence), and stop-and-go traffic would turn to a constant speed. I did this not just because I'm altrustic and to save energy, but because I drive a stick, and stop and go traffic is exhausting.

I guess I pace myself on my bike, too, because I hate stopping and starting for the same reason—it's exhausting. It's also why I ignore stop signs when there's no competing traffic.

[atillathehung.livejournal.com]

I use my cruise control whenever possible, and I use neutral coasting a lot since I drive stick. I also use engine braking, which uses more gas than using the wheel brakes...but it gives a better response if I need to accelerate again since the engine RPMs are higher.

On the bike, lights destroy my average speed, and it definitely wastes energy. It's a lot easier to maintain 20 mph than it is to repeatedly accelerate to 20, then stop, and repeat ad nauseum.

[jecook]

+INFINITY, AND BEYOND!!!!!!


Which is why is sucks donkey wong to go through Snobbsdale on the 101. People brake down to 55 for the cameras, and then ZOOOOOOOOOM up to their usual 90 for all of ten seconds before starting over.

All except the folks behind little ol me, who is cussing out the assholes who do it and making me kick off the cruise control, which is set as a sedate ~70 (it's under the lights threshold for going off)

Fortunately, the opposite trip is either made at midnight or at 4 AM(no traffic at all, and I can just go.)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I definitely coast a lot and try to brake only when necessary. I miss having cruise control in my car, though.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

When you get wealthy, get a Mercedes S-Class-- it has radar-guided cruise control that locks on to the car in front of you and intelligently matches its speed, even to a full stop. You'd probably have to drive to the moon to save enough money on gas to afford an S-Class, alas.