I am a big fan of the Freakonomics blog I have in my list here.
Not too long ago they had a blog about gas prices and how maybe we should lower the speed limit to save gas.
I disagree. Lowering the speed limit may slightly lower your gas consumption but will cause you to increase everyone else's gas consumption by making traffic worse.
The biggest waste of gas is sitting in traffic. Yahoo had an article a while ago that a distracted driver (cell phone) only needs to slow down 2-3 mph to have a significant impact on the flow of traffic.
Rachel's new car is the first I have ever owned that gives your instantaneous mpg. I love measuring anything, so I pay attention to this. We have fun contests to see who can drive more efficiently (last date night, I was totally about to win until I hit the train in Glendale). On the highway her car gets 30 mpg (great for an SUV). I have yet to see the mpg drop due to increased speed, I'm sure it is true but I have not seen a significant impact (I'll let you know after I test cruise control on our trip to Hocking Hills).
If anything we should all speed up.
Or support as many people as possible to work from home 1 day a week reducing their gas consumption and decreasing everyone else's by having less traffic.
In general, I have to physically be at work to make product (unless the FDA allows a PRL in my basement). However, Thursdays are my day of meetings (all day CPS scheduling meetings). It would be possible for me to call in and net meeting.
8 comments:
I suppose if EVERYONE slowed down 2-3 mpg, then we would use a decently less amount of gas.
But that's the problem with this kinda of "advice." It's not practical. It's one of those things that feels good. And assuming it even is good, it's not practical.
There's always the law of unintended consequences... in this example it's the traffic that it would cause.
my favorite thing is that you two have effeciency competitions. you're the greatest couple ever!
we do have some very strange competitions. this one, however, i wouldn't consider a competition so much as dave thinking that he's always winning something that he'll never win.
According to my instantaneous mpg display, I get 6 mpg when flooring it (which happens a lot)! It reads 99 mpg when coasting but I read that all of these types of instant mpg guages are flawed when it comes to coasting (in that they read high) so you have to rely on the old miles travled per fill up calculation to get an accurate read.
Rachel's car shows a reading of the avg for this tank or trip. So the data is smoothed out so it never reads 6 or 99.
so the reading trends down when you sit in traffic. I have yet to see it trend down significantly due to 65 vs 55 mph cruise.
In addition to an instantaneous display for mpg, my car also has a mpg display based on the average of long intervals. It works like a trip meter, so it keeps averaging in your data until you reset it. It's fun to see what a trip on the highway averages versus around town, especially in a car that gets 17 / 27. The "range" in miles per tank ranges from 280 mi around town to 450 mi on the highway!
Some data from my car (Acura TSX)... Right now my long term average is 27 mpg. I don't pay much attention to the instantaneous meter... I assume when it gets to 99 you've basically buried the needle (when you're coasting, you're getting infinite miles per gallon).
I still think there are better things to educate the public about saving gas than driving 10 mph less.
As a long distance commuter, I believe the speed limit should reflect the distance you are going to drive on that trip. For a short trip, keep to the slow lanes and 65 MPH. For a long trip, fast lane and 80+MPH. This would be hard to verify, but worth reviewing. Then as your car is warm and gets better mileage, the increased speed will have less of an effect on mileage.
Mike
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