ALT-1 How to Save Fuel
The Simple Solutions
By Mark Dorroh
We all possess the natural tendency to blame everyone but ourselves for our misfortunes, and the issue of fuel efficiency is no exception. The profits of giant multinaitonal oil companies, unfriendly cartels fixing prices of petrol and the new prosperity of China and India notwitstanding, the fact remains that we have within our individual powers the ability to increase the fuel efficiency of our own vehicles with a few commonsense measures.1. Check tire pressure every few weeks. Properly-inflated tires can increase fuel efficiency by up to three percent. It may not sound like much, but spread over the entire nation, we're talking about saving millions of barrels of fuel per annum. Those savings would tend, through basic market principles, to lower fuel prices while minimizing our carbon footprint in a warming world.2. When traveling on highways and expressways, don't speed. The more mph over the legal limit a driver travels, the more fuel will be expended in getting to precisely the same destination, usually with remarkably little savings in travel time.The mass misinterpretation of speed limits as mere suggestions wastes fuel while turning our highways into battle zones with far too many drivers tailgating, racing, making sudden, ill-advised travel lane switches and otherwise interfering with the safe flow of traffic, to the peril of all.With legal limits set at up to 70 mph even in the crowded I-95 corridor along our eastern coast, there's no excuse for speeding.3. In cities, quit racing up to red lights. Trying to beat the lights is a prime cause of fuel waste and excessive wear on brakes. Instead, set your speed near the limit and learn which thoroughfares will reward you with miles of green lights. I recall in Chicago, where I drove a cab for many years, one could blow off as many as four red lights in a row while traveling in either direction on Irving Park Road, a main east-west, four lane street. I would watch the same bunch of drivers speed up to each light, hit their brakes, then zoom off again, only to be stopped at the next light the same green light up to which I cruised at exactly two miles under the limit in time to see them blaze down the street yet again.Seriously, I'd trail the same bunch of cars for miles, until they finally beat a light, saving them approximately 30 seconds on their total trip time while tailgating, weaving in and out of lanes and otherwise behaving dangerously in traffic.There's only one way to get safely where nwe're going. We must leave home ten minutes early and obey all speed limits, rather than leaving fifteen minutes late, endangering our communities and wasting precious fuel by trying to "make up lost time" in traffic.
