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 On most days I drive a twenty mile stretch of interstate highway near my home
along with thousands of others. The speed limit on the entire section is 60 mph, but the average speed is about 70 mph, and many go much faster than that. I'll admit to frequently exceeding the 60 mph speed limit in the past, but I'm usually in the
slowest third of the traffic. Aside from being illegal, speeding isn't environmentally friendly or responsible. But,
if you aren't thinking and paying attention to that device called a speedometer, it's easy to go with the flow of the traffic or yield to the moron who's riding your rear bumper even though you're already exceeding the speed limit.
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My days of not paying attention to the speedometer ended at the same time gasoline prices soared to levels I never thought I'd see. The general public is outraged at the prices, and everywhere I go people complain about pain at
the pump. Three dollars or so per gallon is expensive enough, so it seemed logical to moderate my speed to use less gasoline. It's good for the environment too, so it's a no-brainer.
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The thing is, traffic on that road hasn't slowed down a bit. Most of the people who travel it must have lots of money they want to donate to Exxon or Shell, aside from not giving a hill of beans about the environment. But, I'm
just not sure who these Dale Earnhardt wannabes are. All the people standing around water coolers complaining about gas prices in the hundreds of offices up and down that freeway can't be the same ones roaring down the road in SUVs at 70 or 80 mph, can
they?
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Driving at 55 mph instead of 75 mph can improve gas mileage by as much as 25%.
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As a rule of thumb, you can assume that each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional twenty cents per gallon for gas.
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Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration and braking) can lower your gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and by 5 percent around town.
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Using gasoline like it still costs $1.25 per gallon sends a strong message to the oil companies that Americans are willing to pay a lot more than they already are. You can bet prices will continue to rise until they see demand begin
to taper off.
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Because people keep guzzling gasoline wastefully regardless of cost, our oil-friendly Senate just passed a measure to allow oil wells on 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico that were previously off limits. They're in for a fight
with the even more oil friendly House of Representatives, which thinks 8.3 million acres is not nearly enough.
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Gasoline mileage is not linear with speed. In other words, it costs very much more to increase your speed from 60 mph to 70 mph than it does to increase your speed from 40 mph to 50 mph. This is because in the equation that defines
the drag of an object moving through air contains a cubic term that becomes significant at speeds much over 50 mph. If it takes 10 horsepower for a car to cruise at 50 mph, it will take 8 times as much, or 80 horsepower, to keep the
same car cruising at 100 mph. The equations are available here. |
