Yeah... just wondering, do you still have a full size trunk or has it been... um... "compressed"? :-)

 

My last one was less than normal, I was going faster, averaging low 60's MPG up to the last 12 miles, where I'd jump off the freeway and get some good long FAS.

I was hoping the last tank would bump me up to 60 but it didn't happen.

With the forcast of $5-6 /G fuel,
26% of the nations refining capacity threatened by hurricane Rita and LA still down to 55% refining capacity looks like rough sailing, price wise.

It's forcing me back into super frugal conservative mode.
Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

I think we all could feel happy these days that we already have the tools on hand for great FE.

Imagine what the poor sap is thinking now, who took delivery of his new full size SUV last week.
It will look nice parked in the driveway.

 

....and if you had a 2006 HCH, might it be 65+? Think of the possibilities....

Thought of an idea to keep winter milage up - get an engine block heater to warm it up quicker. The next best thing to a plug-in hybrid.

 

These websites are filled with a million MPG-saving tips.

There is also websites the government has with tips.

 

Huh?
What?

Oh, you must be talking about those people who modify their hybrids with extra batteries that charge in the wall or something.

Answer: No, my car is stock!
It is all driving technique.
You can do it too.

 

I think the thing people don't understand is when an occasional driver gets annoyed at you it bothers you at first. But as soon as you realize you keep meeting them at the next light you start to dismiss them as being (for lack of a better word) stupid for wasting all that gas for NO reason. At least thats the way it is with me.

No mater what they think, I know I was right and they were wrong in how we were driving our cars.

 

It was a joke about getting rear-ended. I really meant it as a joke but I do wonder about hypermiling sometimes. I really think its cool that these cars can do that kind of mileage, and It's awesome that you guys are accomplishing it. However, my personal reservatoin is in wondering if the safety risk is worth it.

I'm all for getting the best mileage you can, but for me safety is more important, and I'll spend a little gas for it. Accrding to a study I read, you're 4-5 times more likely to have an accident going 10 mph below the speed limit than 10 above if that's the speed of traffic. I live in a state where there's lots of people going really slow on the freeway and it's darn right dangerous because most people are going 75+ and when you get a run-down beater going 55 it's a real hazard. Plus, driving with your car shut off is more dangerous - it's illegal for a reason - your response time is reduced, or in some cases your ability to respond to an emergent situation is completely crippled without the ability to accellerate.

The simple fact that one's priorities are distracted by obsessing over mileage makes the decision making process more complex and therefore ability to respond to situations on the road is compromised. In a way I do it myself when I'm using cruise control - that simple compulsive tendency to try to get around someone without canceling the cruise allows me to get closer to other cars than I normally would. I even find myself doing it with FE too - rolling through stop signs and right turns on red so I don't lose all my momentum (even got stopped for it last week).

Its another high-priority criteria in our decision making process that may someday create enough of a delay in my response time to make the difference between an accident or not - every split second counts and I prefer to try to minimize the chance of being distracted by the wrong priorities at a critical moment. And with the amount of energy in a car going 20 mph faster than me, at those speeds I don't want to mess around. I find it a balancing act myself even at my half-*** level of committment to FE, so I know that getting more extreme about it is not a good thing for me. Not saying you shouldn't do it, just sharing my personal rationale.

 

Hi ZimBop:
___I have said this on numerous occasions in various hybrid forums and have thought it thousands of times when reading posts like yours. I can almost guarantee a hypermiler is far more attuned to the cars ¼ mile ahead, 1 block behind, 3 lanes to the left and what is in the maintenance lane as an emergency exit more then ANYBODY on the road at any time and anywhere. You have to be or you are not going to receive the FE a hypermiler almost always receives!

___A real world example … I was driving home into a 15 mph head wind/storm tonight and pulling a draft about 5 - 6 car lengths behind a UPS single at 55 - 57 mph in the right lane. Oh my god, another dangerous act!!! I saw a car slowly coming up from behind in the left lane of this 2-lane Interstate (I-55 south of Joliet heading Northbound) who started pacing about ¼ mile back. I moved back to maybe 7 car lengths figuring it was a State Trooper. He paced us for about another mile and then zoomed on by. Sure enough, it was an Illinois State Trooper! Have you ever felt/seen a State Trooper come up on your left rear quarter from ½ mile away at midnight in the middle of a thunder storm? There was other traffic of course given this is a Chicago area interstate but it was light given the time of night … This one was acting slightly different then the rest. This old hypermiler saw him out of his rear and side views at a relatively large distance, in the middle of the night, and in the worst of conditions. Do you think your fellow 75 +’ers would have seen the same? I bet most of those 75 +’ers would not have seen him in the middle of a clear day with only the two of them on the road! I say this with a big ego and because of it, I will probably be involved in a pileup tomorrow afternoon

___As for the speed differentials, I can almost sense that you are one of those that passes anybody driving in the far right lanes because you can. If you are not, I owe you a full apology. The worst accidents I have seen happen in the left lanes where everybody is supposedly moving about the same speed but well beyond the speed limits and well beyond their ability to brake in time. I saw a 4 SUV pileup Monday or Tuesday afternoon just south of O’Hare (southbound on I-294) about ¼ a mile in front of me. I was heading northbound myself. Every single one of the 4 drivers were traveling at what I would guess to be a steady 65 + in a 55 mph zone in their left lane with an ~ 3 - 4 car length spread. The beginning of the traffic tie up was near where I was at that exact moment it happened. SUV #1 slammed on the brakes and stopped in time to miss the slow movers in this tie up but SUV #2, #3, and #4 didn’t and I saw a high speed accident in which 2 of the 4 SUV’s air bags deployed! All because of the stupidity of doing 10 over along with everybody else in the far left lanes and not a chance in hell that all 4 were going to stop given their perception and reaction times let alone the actual stopping distances at those speeds! That is where the real safety issues are imho. How many of the 18-wheeler’s you pass daily are driving in the middle and left lanes at 10 over in heavy traffic? Do you know how many miles those guys drive in a year? In a decade? Over a lifetime without much in the way of an incident? Follow the pros because most are by far better drivers then the hundreds of thousands of others you and I share the road with … I did say most. There are any number of OTR’s that are driving over the limits by what I deem to be an excessive amount too but not nearly as many as those you and I drive with day in and day out

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

Something like that happened to me once...

I was travelling along in the right lane (at about 55km/h) when a semi pulls out from the curb, forcing the guy in front of me to slam on his brakes, and me too... we both manage to stop in time to avoid collisions but the car behind me (small Suzuki) didn't even seem to notice that I had stopped and plowed into my car, then a big SUV (Yukon) slammed into the car behind me, pushing me into the car ahead of me... That was such a fun day!

 

Zimbop you make some very good points about safety.
I will take your post to heart.

Perhaps this is a good motto to drive by:
Safety First
Courtesy Second
MPG Third