[SustainableTompkins] "Eco-driving" fuel-saving tips

[Rena D. Grossman]

I think I recall a thread on here about eco-driving in cities. If not,
can any of you add your 2 cents about driving efficiency in urban
areas? I am living in NYC now and spend anywhere from 45 minutes to an
hour and a half in traffic in each direction every day.

I'm not a fan of driving or supporting the oil companies and filling
my tank every week (as oppose to once every month to two in Ithaca) is
depressing.

Thanks,

Rena

On 6/29/08, Elan Shapiro <elansla at ecovillage.ithaca.ny.us> wrote:
> NY Times Op Ed 6/29/08
>  By TOM VANDERBILT
>   June 29, 2008
>
>  DRIVING less - fewer miles or smaller vehicles - is the rational
>  response to higher fuel prices. But there's something else motorists
>  can do: drive smarter.
>
>  What impact have high gas prices had on your life?
>
>  In Europe, where gas prices are often more than twice what they are
>  here, eco-driving has become mandatory in the driving curriculums in
>  Germany, Sweden and, most recently, Britain. Beginning drivers are
>  taught to  avoid idling,  unnecessary braking  and  jackrabbit starts
>  at traffic lights, among other lessons that can bring fuel savings to
>  as high as 25 percent.
>
>  Other fuel-saving tips include carefully timing one's approach to
>  slowing traffic or red signals and not accelerating toward a "stale
>  green," that is, a signal that's about to change.
>
>  As the United States has no national driving standard, establishing a
>  similar curriculum here would be challenging. It may be even harder
>  to get people to forsake the temptations of hurry-up-and-wait driving.
>
>  It would be better to provide drivers with accurate real-time fuel
>  consumption information - similar to the "energy monitor" on the
>  dashboard of a Toyota Prius. Studies show that feedback can change
>  energy consumption.
>
>  Another approach is to change the traffic landscape. Roundabouts,
>  which favor slow coasting over starting and stopping and eliminate
>  the need to idle at red signals when an intersection is empty, can
>  cut fuel use 10 percent to 30 percent.
>
>  The average speed of free-flowing traffic is also likely to drop in
>  response to high fuel prices, as it has already in Britain. It simply
>  costs more to go faster. One American trucking firm has announced
>  that its fleet will now travel a maximum of 60 miles per hour.
>
>  Consider also driving less aggressively. An Australian study found
>  that an "aggressively" driven vehicle saved a mere five minutes over
>  a 94-minute course compared with a "smoothly" driven vehicle - but
>  the smooth car used 30 percent less fuel.
>
>  There's two ways to ease the pain of higher gas prices: drive a
>  Prius, or drive like a Prius.
>
>  - TOM VANDERBILT, the author of the forthcoming "Traffic: Why We
>  Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)"
>
>  --
>  Elan Shapiro
>  Sustainable Tompkins Community Partnership Coordinator
>  Sustainable Living Associates, Principal
>  Frog's Way B&B
>  211 Rachel Carson Way
>  Ithaca, NY 14850
>  607-275-0249    607-592-8402 Cell
>
>  "We must be the change we want to see in the world"
>                   Mohandas Gandhi
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