After listening to a segment on NPR's
Living on Earth and
Jack sending me an
MSNBC article on hypermiling, where people change their driving behavior to extract the most amount of milage per gallon, I decided to give it my own non-scientific try.
The article mentions these tips for trying to maximize mileage but I have a very small brain and am wholly non-committal about eating raw foods, etc, so I picked a few things that I thought I could do for the day; these are highlighted in bold:
- Avoid jackrabbit starts.
- Slightly overinflate tires.
- Shift into neutral when going downhill.
- Drive 5 mph below the speed limit, but stay in the right lane.
- Coast to a stop at red lights.
- Shut off the air conditioner.
- Monitor your mileage on a real-time gauge and adjust as you go.
- Draft sensibly behind tractor-trailers.
- Know alternate routes to avoid stop-and-go traffic.
- Park at the highest point in parking lot and let gravity get the car moving.
I think I already stay in a higher gear than is probably recommended (cutting down on engine use) and use engine braking enough, so getting to coasting to a stop wasn't a problem. It's a bit strange to hold in the clutch to put the engine in neutral at various times during driving, though. Instead of "avoiding jackrabbit starts" which, honestly, is a travesty and malfeasance of driving S4, I would go over the speed limit and then push in the clutch, "pulsing" my driving. It reminded me of how tentative grandmothers (or my mom, sorry mom!) drive. I could see there being a sort of art to figuring out when to overshoot so that the ups and downs in the road could be maximized. Doing that, alone, got me this picture:
That was taken in a 30 mph zone, so I'm just above the speed limit before I have to pulse again. Note my low RPMs, my 133.0 mpg, and that I'm listening to
KGNU. My readout maxxes at 200 mpg and I saw that a few times, too, on my 15 minute drive to work. So, pretty cool. And it does have a net effect. My overall avg mpg for the day was just about 30, which is way above my normal 21-23 mpg. (I also put the A/C on "econ" instead of "auto," but it was a cool day today.) That 9 mpg difference is like (1.3 miles/day, 0.3 gallons/day...) about $230/year at $3.20/gallon
here. If I kept it up it might be worth it, but after a day of experimentation I've sort of had enough.
This brings me to my conclusion: Hypermiling is dangerous and stupid. I took a picture while driving, I was in neutral a whole lot when I shouldn't've been (slaloming through parking lots, just gliding along), I was watching my dynamic mpg readout, I was trying not to apply the breaks and attempting to time when people in front of me would go fast enough, etc - I wasn't paying attention to driving, I was paying attention to maximizing
my desire to save gas, or whatever hypermilers think they're doing. I was endangering myself and others. Encouraging mpg-thirsty drivers to draft along with trucks is just irresponsible, even if there're caveat-words like "sensibly" attached to recommendations. Since when've words stopped people from doing stupid things? Driving is ultimately a community experience - you look out for everyone else and hopefully they're trying not to hit you, too. It's ironic that people who're ostensibly trying to save the
environment (and presumably the people that live in the environment)
are selfishly endangering others.
One of my first thoughts was that people could put up a sign or a bumper sticker that said "Hypermiler on Board" and that way people would know that this car was going to be driving erratically like a new teenager or Mr. Magoo. We're already a society of people who drive like idiots, barely having to take any sort of formal driving classes beyond our sweet 16's. I don't think getting a few more mpg is justification enough for trying out or even practicing a new method of driving. Add this new way to
eating while... ,
talking on the cell while..., and
applying makeup while... and the net effect would probably be enough to get Ralph Nader in a twitter. The upside of self-identifying hypermilers would be that when a law is passed, we'd all be able to see who the irresponsible ones are.
The issue with me is obviously how people drive. We'd all be better off if we taught people how to drive, drive defensively, and maybe even to drive in an "hypermiling" manner (a "more efficient" manner might be less 'activist'). Sure, but this isn't IndoctrinationCampistan. People do what they want with an in their cars. The federal government gives us
tips to drive more efficently and maintain our cars, but that's the extent of it. I don't think Colorado even requires any length of formalized driving education. In Illinois, it was just a bunch of 15 and 16 y/o's flirting with each other for a few hours a week while we watched movies from the 60's and 70's and some parallel parking. Years afterwards, with bad habits developed, an HBO special and some wapo and npr articles aren't going to make everyone straighten up.
Who knows, maybe there'll be a lane for the driving equivalent of the Ministry of Silly Walks.
