Save gas and drive the home stretch w/out hitting the pedal!
FiveCentNickel had an excellent post this morning on improving your gas mileage by slowing down.It's one of those "theories" out there that people are always trying to prove themselves, and Nickel did it!
To be honest, I really dont' have the patience to track it myself, BUT his post DID remind me of my newest challenge.
It's kind of dumb really, but it's one of those things that i feel good about *if* I accompish it ;) it doesn't take much to get me excited - I'm one of those kids that would do anything if it meant getting a lollipop or slurpee afterwards. haha...
But back to my little driving challenge. For whatever reason, the Mrs. one day tried to drive from the entrance of our townhouse complex, all the way to our townhouse without touching the gas pedal once. She accomplished it on her first try, and it intrigued me. So i started doing it too! But after a cple weeks the challenge bored me, so i kept extending the length in road, leading me to my biggest challenge:
Going the last 1 and a 1/2 miles to our place without hitting the gas pedal once!
Now, i've got to tell you that it's quite a feat to accomplish. The first is trying to figure out how fast you'll need to be going at the start to get to the end. I've won this race only ONCE so far, and i started out at 29 mph. I KNOW i could make it more, but there are a ton of other obstacles in the way:
- There are 2 up hills! Luckily, at the end of the 2nd one there's a nice down hill which shoots you right into the complex, so as long as you make it up that 2nd hump, you're smooth sailing!
- There can't be any cars around you. That last hill REALLY kills your momentum, and i can tell you from experience that people do NOT enjoy watching your car litterally inching up it! I mean, i'd be pretty pissed about it too. This leads us to the 3rd major obstacle...
- At times you will look like a P.I.M.P. creeping along @ night. Since there are always cars around you, the only time that really works here is going at night. And usually later in the night too. So, depending on what car you drive, you have to pass houses going 3-5 miles an hour until you read the top of the hill! And in my Caddy? Shoooooooot, i'd be pulled over in a sec. So far so good though! (watch me get pulled over tonight...)
As Nickel said, driving slowly and more efficiently will def. save you some money. But make a challenge out of it and do it for the sake of entertainment too! It's a helluva fun way to spice up the drive home, that's for sure. Try it, you'll crack yourself up! ;)
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You can check out my other challenges here.
Labels: car stuff, challenges, money hacks, saving
posted by J. Money at
11:34 AM
7 Comments:
You know my husband has started to drive slower to and from work and is using the cruise control and it works! He gets almost 40 miles to the gallon now :) And that really helps since his commute is 50 miles each way.
I used to do this all time! lol. My friends thought I was crazy but then they started doing it too. haha.
I've also tried the no brakes thing. Easier in a standard, cause you can down shift. I used to drive home from work and never touch the brakes. I got out at 10 pm and it was a small town, so hardly any traffic. I would go through neighborhoods to avoid red lights and stuff. Quite the challenge.
This sounds so fun! I'm going to try it today on one of the busiest streets in L.A. wish me luck!
haha this is hilarious J. you made my day :))
This is what's called "hypermiling," that is, modifying your driving habits so as to extract the maximum mileage out of a gallon of gas.
I can attest that minimizing your braking really makes a difference in mileage. My car is rated by the EPA at 29/35 and i've gotten as much as 40 MPG. And that's with a 9 year old Honda. I average about 38. So why bother plunking down $23K on a hybrid? I'm doing pretty well without the lofty price tag
Yeah "hypermiling"! rock on...i've heard of that before but who woulda thunk i was doing it?
And good call on the shifting down part - can't do it in my automatic, but sounds good! i kinda miss my honda prelude actually for the shifting part, but def. not when i'm sitting in traffic. bleh.
ms. hart - awwww yeah! you go with your bad self. just watch out for the coppers...or don't. it would make for a good story ;)
Fun stuff! I've been working a lot on my mileage too. I love tracking things like this.
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