Saturday 22 May 2004
Good & Bad driving habits
WorldChanging - Fuel-Efficient Driving Habits
Just about all of these "fuel efficient driving habits" have been my habits, without even thinking about it consciously, since I got a car in 2000.
Consolidating trips is second-nature to me, having ridden a mountain bike for transportation for years. When it's your own energy you're exerting, there's a very tangible motivation for being efficient. It's stuck with me.
Recently, I've been setting my cruise control any time I'm on a highway. I've actually noticed that I also seem to relax more when I set the cruise control below 70mph. However, other motorists around me get their stress level up from it, it would seem. I frequently have people ride right up to my tail, and then pass aggressively at the last second. Thursday, I was travelling Route 81 from Scranton to Wilkes-Barre at about 3:30pm, in a 55mph zone with my cruise control set at 62mph. For about 10-15 minutes, a Sarno & Sons formalwear business van was tailgating me - very close, even though he had several ample opportunities to pass me. I can only imagine that he was trying to bully me into speeding up or something - like he couldn't just accept that I was going to maintain that speed. He passed me after I pointed to a sign on the highway that reads "Don't Tailgate".
I use coasting a lot, rather than speeding up and braking... Not only because it's more fuel efficient & safer, but because it's a more pleasant and relaxing way to drive than to constantly be in a state of herky-jerky starts & stops. But I sometimes have motorists behind me crawling up my tailpipe, honking, and making rude gestures because I'm not rushing up to a red light up ahead.
I sometimes have people tailgating me aggressively (swerving back & forth) when there's a ton of cars in front of me preventing me from going faster, which makes no sense. Of course I don't understand tailgating at all, because the law is pretty much set up that if you hit someone from behind - it's your fault - so I keep my distance from cars in front of me who might do something unexpected.
I read a blog post yesterday about traffic control design:
Into the Breach - Sharing Streets
"The latest thing in urban traffic design is to get rid of traffic control altogether. That's right. No rules. Drivers have to slow down and actually watch where they are going."
In most places, 4 way traffic signs work well. People drive up, take their turn, and it's faster than a traffic light for everyone in a lot of cases. However, there's one 4 way stop sign in Scranton, that during rush hour, is like a battlefield. If you're not very aggressive, you won't get your turn, because most people don't seem to be paying attention to whose turn it is, they just pull right out into the intersection. On Thursday, I had someone cut me off trying to make a left turn when I was going straight, and it was my turn, and then the other 2 cars at the intersection should've gone after me, and this motorist came within inches of hitting my car and looked at me angrily.
I've thought about turning off my engine at a long traffic light, but considering the aggressiveness of people at the 4 way stop sign, I'd be concerned if I did such an unusual thing as turning my engine off at a red light, I'd have someone behind me go wild thinking I was just shutting down and going to continue to sit there once the light turned green.
(WorldChanging link via NEPA Whirl-Mart)
posted by Chloe | Saturday 22 May 2004 2:31 AM
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