My sympathies, niteflyp38. It really does sound like you have a few big things working against you- short trips, city driving, stop and go, and it must be frustrating to know that all of that works against your fuel efficiency. However, two comments.

First, I really don't think you should go by the rpms alone- gentle acceleration is necessary but not sufficient to getting high FE. There's a lot more to it- use your trip meter, use your instantaneous mpg meter to see how the things you do-- slight inclines you never noticed before, coasting to maintain speed instead of braking and accelerationg if you increase your following distance and so on-- have a really big impact on efficiency.

Second, keep in mind that the drawbacks working against you (short commute, stop and go) would also be killing your FE in a non-hybrid car. Perhaps the numbers just wouldn't be so glaring. A ten percent drop in efficiency in a car that gets 20 mpg means you drop to 18, but in a 50 mpg car, it's a drop to 45, and that *looks* much bigger.

 

I'm SO glad you brought this up. You are absolutely right, yet most people think of the suit as the poster-child for "frivolous". Unfortunate we couldn't have picked a better representative example as the poster-child.

 

All city driving is the problem. As of this morning I have driven about 350 miles on this tank of gas, and my MPG is 40.1
These are all commuting miles. 15 mile trips 90% city traffic. I would be getting probably 37-38 if I left my tire pressure as it was when I got the car.

The best MPG I have gotten was on a 200 mile trip on 55 mph roads where I was going between 50 and 60 MPH. I averaged 55 mpg. I only made a few stops and it was a nice warm day.

 

The McDonald's case WAS a frivolous lawsuit. How stupid do you have to be to place anything hot between your legs while DRIVING. I can see if an employee of McDonald accidently spilt hot coffee on somebody's lap. But please, this is what is WRONG with America. Nobody wants to take responsiblility for their own actions, it is always somebody else's fault.

In this case, you have some nut job claiming he can't but the rest of the world can get the advertised mpg. I see the problem is his commute.

All we need to do is pass a law that requires the losing side to pay for all court cost. Then we won't get into million dollor missing pant lawsuit.

 

In many states that is the law but Judges rarely apply it. Certainly an area the US can learn from most of the rest of the world.

Another option is Loser's Lawyer pays.

 

Management may have known about the overheated water, but that doesn't excuse the woman from being stupid enough to stick it in her lap.

 

Many people really have a big blind spot when it comes to the McDonald's coffee case, it would seem. okay, one more shot and then I give up.

The reason McDonald's was liable in the coffee case was, presumably, because they were found to be negligent. Negligence under the law is Duty/Breach/Causation/Damages.

1) The restaurant has a duty to the customers and the public to protect from or warn of known or unknown risks to the safety of their invitees (which means a person who comes onto a property for commercial purposes; in this case, customers),* 2) McDonalds knowingly breached that duty by not fixing the broken machine that was superheating the water or, alternatively, perhaps warning the customers to let the coffee cool a really long while before drinking it, 3) the superheated water coming into contact with a customer caused her to be injured and 4) those injuries were so severe- in this case, third degree burns- as to cost her damages, probably medical expenses etc., for which she needed recompense (damages can also include punitive damages, but let's not open that can of worms).

So to respond to livvie and mmrmnhrm, it makes no difference at all whether she spilled it in her lap and was burned or she drank it and was burned- the water was SO hot that it was dangerous no matter how it came into contact with the customer. Possibly drinking it would have caused injuries to even more sensitive areas, and been just as damaging in a smaller quantity. Anyway, last time I checked, it is not illegal in most places to have or eat food while driving, or to drive a car that doesn't have cupholders. If you can get worked up enough to call a stranger who never hurt you names for spilling things, which most of us do fairly often in the course of our lives, and you let your anger overshadow a pretty horrific injury to that person, then you do not have enough compassion.



*as a side note, the standard is different when it comes to licensees (social guests) or trespassers (uninvited or unknown persons)- you have no duty to warn of unknown risks for people who come to your house socially, for instance, and you only have a duty to trespassers to the extent that you don't create excessive risks for them, like digging tiger pits, etc.

 

I'm going to accept leahbeatle's word the McDonalds spilled coffee case was not frivlious.

I'm afraid the US leads the world in frivious lawsuits however...a better example of such would be the severed finger in Wendy's Chilli. I like the outcome in that particular case.

 

From what I recall the coffee was HOT because it doesn't "spoil" as quickly. There wasn't a malfunction in the machine, this was status quo. And for all the people that drank coffee from the very same machine, no issue to report of.

Again, DRIVING while drinking anything is just plain STUPID. Had she drank the coffee at McDonald's she would have waited for it to cool down just like everybody else did.

Anyway, the point is, no fault was placed on her (I stand corrected... she was found 20% at fault), which tells me and everybody else in America, NOTHING is every your own fault. Which is great, more money for lawyers, which indirectly means more money for me. I can live with that and laugh all the way to the bank.

 

You guys are straying off on a tangent.