HOW TO IMPROVE GAS MILEAGE BY KEEPING YOUR FOOT OFF THE GAS
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The Third Fuel Friendly Fundamental: When in motion, your car uses the least amount of energy when coasting. (Or - How to improve gas mileage by keeping your foot off the gas.) Whenever pressure is applied to the accelerator, we are accelerating. And we do love to accelerate. It means we're on our way. We feel that surge of power and we feel in control. On the other hand, we hate to decelerate. That means something is in our way. Most city drivers spend the majority of their driving time either accelerating or braking. When they get close to a stoplight or a car in front of them, they take their foot off the gas and hit the brake. The instant the light turns green, they take their foot off the brake and hit the gas. For most people city driving is a repeating cycle of accelerate-brake, accelerate-brake. For aggressive drivers, city driving is a repeating cycle of accelerate hard-brake-cuss, accelerate hard-brake-cuss. It's the same cycle as most other folks, but with more enthusiasm. If you're looking for ways to increase gas mileage and save energy, there is a much better way to drive in the city than accelerate-brake. Next time try accelerate-COAST-brake. Coasting occurs when your foot is on neither the brake nor the gas pedal. It's easier to do than you might think. It just involves planning ahead a bit. As you accelerate from a stoplight you should be looking at the road ahead anyway and when you do it takes only a fraction of a second to read the traffic ahead. Watch to see if you have a green light or if you will need to stop before going through the next intersection. If you see the light turn red ahead or see traffic slowing in front of you, why would you continue accelerating? But a lot of folks do, and it wastes energy. Look for opportunities to COAST. When you become a coaster the first thing you'll notice is how many people go racing past you, only to slam on their brakes and arrive at the light only a second ahead of you, and still have to wait for the thing to turn green. Accelerate-brake gained them nothing, and cost them extra gas and extra wear and tear. Accelerate-COAST-brake is a great way to increase gas mileage, it also saves wear on your brakes, and gives you a little extra safety margin as a bonus; all of that and it didn't cost you one second of time. Another energy saving opportunity for coasting is in heavy freeway traffic. Allowing plenty of room between you and the car in front of you will eliminate a lot of the accelerate-brake pattern of freeway driving in heavy traffic. You can COAST more when you leave more space between you and the car in front of you. It can be aggravating when you try to leave some extra room only to have traffic in the neighboring lane jump front of you. It happens, sometimes a lot. But if you can fade back a bit you will find that you can replace the accelerate-brake-accelerate pattern with a pattern of accelerate (gently)-coast-accelerate (gently). You will save gas, wear and tear on your car, and wear and tear on your nerves. And you and your passengers will be safer for the effort. _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________
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