Turns out $4 a gallon gas might have been the sticking point for a lot of Americans. Gas prices have been going up for years, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen people changing their habits because of it. People have complained and tried to get prices down, but suddenly SUV’s aren’t selling, Smart cars are. People are driving less, biking more. Houses in the suburbs (even more than others) are a hard sell.
With all that, there’s a lot of talk about hypermiling. Maybe not so much that you’ve heard about it. The first I’d heard of it was last week with a video on CNN. The video featured a man who averages nearly twice the fuel economy of his standard Honda Accord by using fuel-saving driving techniques. I have to admit I was a little skeptical watching him push his car out of his driveway. I guess overall it made an impression on me, because I realized there are a lot of more reasonable things you can do to greatly increase your mileage.
I’m going for it
At least for one tank of gas. I have a mighty small tank on my motorcycle, so the real question is, “How far can I go on 2 gallons of gas?”
I already have a distinct advantage — I ride a motorcycle that gets 50+ mpg. I usually average around 55 in the winter and 60 in the summer. That 5 mile difference is mainly because of item 10 from the link above. When my engine stays warm, I don’t have to burn extra gas warming it up. I just hop on and go, keeping the RPMs low.
It’s easy to kill the engine and coast to stops, and thus not waste gas idling at stop-lights. Now, I usually go a few miles above the speed limit. If I just cut that back to the unreasonably low limits in the DC area, there should be noticeable increase in fuel economy.
So that’s it — At least for my next tank of gas, I’m driving less aggressively, turning off the engine whenever I can, and coasting more than I brake. I already ride without air conditioning!
Anybody want to venture a guess at how far those 2 gallons will take me? It should take me about 3 days (4 if this goes well!) so I’ll keep you posted.