Admittedly driving 55 mph on Routes 95 and 93 is not advisable. My experiment had me driving on average about 63 mph, which resulted in me being passed by even the most “senior drivers”. But the gas mileage improvement was huge, about 20 percent and, if I extrapolated it out, would say me about $60 a month based on the miles I drive and today’s gas prices.
The biggest argument I hear against driving slow-60 mph-is that cars nowadays drive so smooth at 80 mph, and mine certainly does. Funny thing though, it drives just as smooth at 60 mph. The reason I find myself driving 80 mph is that I simply get in the left lane and drive with the flow of the traffic-which often brings me into the 85 mph range before I even notice. So if the flow of the traffic was slower, I would automatically be driving slower. But the flow is still at 80 mph and therefore I had to move over to the right lanes and use my cruise control to stop my foot from joining in pack. (Maybe it should be called “speed control” instead of cruise control.)
Another major argument against driving slower is that it will take us longer to get where we need to be…and we are that kind of society aren’t we? No doubt it took me longer to get to where I needed to be, but I honestly can say that it did not take much longer driving in the low 60’s mph than it did driving in the low 80’s. The answer to that puzzling logic is quite simple. Most of my driving was during rush hours when I tended to be either driving 80 or 20 mph or not moving at all. When I was driving 60, cars that passed me 10 minutes earlier had to stop like me at the bottle necks and were probably one mile ahead of me. So when the flow of traffic hit 60 mph, I was only a minute behind them-kind of like getting a yellow flag in car racing, which gives the slower cars a chance to catch up to the leaders. Everyday my commute time varies based on all the ugly factors that many of us are aware of. So I did not notice any big difference in the time of my commute and for a couple of days, I think there was no difference at all.
As for the exact results: Given roughly the same driving ratio of city vs. highway (about 90 percent highway), I would average about 24/25 miles per gallon on my mid-size 4-cylinder car driving like “most people”. Under the similar conditions, I averaged an eye popping 30 miles per gallon while driving between 60 to 65 mpg. That is one mpg HIGHER than the estimated mpg on the sticker when I bought the car!
So I “saved” about 2 gallons per fill up (normally I filled up every 340 miles and today I actually put 13 gallons in after driving 400 miles on one tank). I normally fill up twice a week and at 3.65 a gallon (so far), I “saved” about $7 a fill-up or about 56 bucks a month, _which I’ll save up to pay to heat my house next year-snark).
But I do not advocate rolling back the speed limit to 55, even though we could save an estimated 1 BILLION barrels of oil a year, which would end our dependency on Middle East oil.
Laws can not legislate commonsense. Despite all the moaning and groaning about the cost of gas, it’s not hurting us enough to drive a little slower and improve out “bang for the buck” by 15-20, even 25% of the current cost of gasoline. I certainly realized this as mega-SUV’s zoomed past me heading to their next $100 fill up. I guess it will have to hurt a lot more before people stop whining about the price of gas and actually do something to alleviate it. Also, watching all these 8 cylinders race past me confirmed why we should not be rolling back any state of federal gas taxes. Clearly if people won’t save themselves 70 or 80 cents per galloon by driving a little slower, they have not demonstrated any need to save 18 cents or 50 cents per galloon by rolling back the gas taxes.
i routinely set my cruise control so that i won’t mindlessly speed up (which i tend to do). it does wonders for the mileage.
<
p>there is a “no idle” regulation in mass. when i lived there i always meant to put together a half sheet flier to stick on cars left idling. include basic info about the regulation, gas wasted and pollutants spewed while leaving a parked car running. maybe you’ll pick up the ball i dropped… (i’ve always wanted to steel keys from these cars and lock people out. never had the nerve, but suuuure is tempting. especially when they’re left, windows down, parked in the crosswalk…
Cruise control is bad for your mileage, though granted it’s better than some driving styles. The problem with cruise control is that in trying to keep you at a constant speed, it ends up spending most of your gas accelerating up the inclines. You’d do much better to accelerate a little less on inclines, letting your speed drop a little, and make up for it by going a little faster downhill.
<
p>You can increase your mileage even more by “pulsing” – accelerate over your desired speed, switch into neutral, and coast for a while, until you’re going below your desired speed. If you pulse like that just before the crest of a rise on a highway, your “glide” in neutral can be much longer, too.
<
p>(You’d get a really dramatic mileage increase if you “glide” with the engine off, but that’s not really safe IMO. Hypermilers do it that way.)
i think it also depends on the topography of the area. when i am on long drives (hour or more) i don’t have the capacity to concentrate on high-mileage driving techniques. i just end up going fast. so the cruise control is a great device for me, even if i could theoretically get even better mileage driving as you suggest. my highway mileage improves 5-10 mpg using the cruise as compared to the pedal. whatever works, right?
Like I said, some driving techniques are worse than cruise control. If turning it on is your strategy for avoiding one of those, then you benefit. But cruise control itself is still a low mileage technique, just not the worst one by any stretch.
If you’re primary goal is to maximize your mpg, you won’t do it with cruise control.
<
p>But, if your goal is to improve your mileage from current habits, and those highway habits include slowly sneaking up to higher mph, than cruise control can be an effective way to improve mileage as compared to your current habits.
<
p>I’m not so sure that pulsing works in general. To be sure, timing your accelerations around inclines and declines helps, but on flat ground it’s not obvious to me that pulsing will improve mileage on a modern reasonably well tuned auto.
Though of course it works much better when matched with inclines and declines, it still improves mileage perceptibly on flat ground – especially if, in cities, you stay in neutral through the red light that you glide up to. It’s debatable whether the gain in mileage balances out the wear on the transmission, I suppose. On highways it’s definitely worth it (as long as you watch out for increasing your speed too much on the downhill, which would be unsafe).
I know when I was younger and heard about cars being most efficient at ~55mph, I wondered why that should be so. It never made a lot of sense to me, and I suspect that most people view it in the same way. Now, though, I know a bit of physics, enough to understand it. And being the sort of guy I am, I’ll pass it along. No real math, just hand-waving, but hopefully that’s enough:
<
p>One of the major forces acting upon us as we drive down the road is friction. Or, more properly, air resistance. Billions of molecules of air hitting the fenders, the windshield, the headlights, the sideview mirrors, etc.
<
p>The force that these molecules exert on the car, aka drag or air resistance, actually goes up with the square of your velocity. So if you drive 120 mph, you’re fighting four times the drag that you do at 60, and 16 times the drag of 30 mph.
<
p>Now, there are other forces at work when you drive, of course, including the innate inefficency of the internal combustion engine, so the drag effect doesn’t really come into play until you’re over 50 mph or so. But when it does come into play, it affects you big-time, due to the squaring effect. The difference between 80mph and 60mph is a 56% reduction in drag. Not to say you’ll save 56% more gas, but you should see a significant savings as a result.
<
p>So yes, driving slower on the highways will save you significant gas. This is something that everyone should at least know about, and I think the word is getting out. (I know it was out in the 70s, but I think a lot of people either never took it seriously or forgot or assumed that modern cars would be more efficient at high speed.)
18 wheelers. I got a whopping 29 MPG from Augusta ME to Houlton ME last year at 85mph in a 6 cylinder Sonata. Why? Because I drafted behind an 18 wheeler for the whole trip. It was amazing to me.
<
p>Do yourself a favor. Find a trucker and make him your friend…
That’s something you don’t see every day. Good for you, EaBo! More Republicans should follow your example.
J’accuse!
or not doing checks before gun sales.
<
p>Republicans like to break certain laws.
but either way, be careful doing this, especially on wet or slippery roads. If your car is light enough, the draft can actually lift your car enough so that you lose some traction and control of your car. i was once young and stupid enough to draft behind a semi in an mg midget. because i was so close behind, i couldn’t see that the snowy road ahead was turning. the car skidded badly and i very nearly lost control. i’ve never repeated that stupid stunt again.
… recently. Their gut was that there was no ‘energy stealing’ going on with drafting. Of course they also admitted that their gut checks are vulnerable to stupidity and figured they’d get a bunch of email on the subject.
No, drafting actually increases effeciency for both vehicles. The first, by reducing drag from turbulence in the wake; the second by decreasing drag in front. Don’t you watch Mythbusters?
<
p>Yes, it is dangerous. Slightly less so on an Interstate than on a winding snowy road, but dangerous nonetheless.
<
p>I have done the experiment Eabo describes, and in order for it to really work, you must be thisclose to the semi’s bumper, which would take off my head if the semi stopped short and I didn’t. Nowadays, I’m conent to spend the extra $25 in gas.
yeah, so close you can see the fingerprints in the “wash me” dust graffiti lol!
<
p>it was a relief when the law started requiring semis to have that stationary “car catcher” bar suspended below the rear bumper. no more of the terror of the backwards olden days, where cars would get rammed beneath the semi. now it’s a quick and merciful head-on crushing or, if you’re lucky, a clean beheading. and not a scratch on your semi host! now we return to our broadcast of Red Asphalt.
I remember in the late 70s a particularly grizzly accident on Route 2 in Concord that involved an MG running into the back of a tractor trailer with the windshield (and torsos) cleanly sheared off. Not advisable.
So you recommend driving thisclose to an 18 wheeler at 85 mph…like I said in the original post…you can’t legislate commonsense.
<
p>Also, I mapped out Augusta to Houlton…so for almost 200 miles you where to this trucker what I’ve always known you to be…a pain in the ass.
I should also point out that airlines are also flying slower to save fuel. Southwest has extended each flight by 1 to 3 minutes, and is saving 14 million gallons of fuel per year as a result.
<
p>
Last year I bought a Camry Hybrid and it has a little gauge that shows approximate MPG in real time, so you can see roughly what kind of mileage you are getting at any given moment. It was quite eye-opening.
<
p>It has helped me become a more efficient driver, not just in my car, but in my wife’s minivan or even rental cars, because I now can see what a big difference it makes if I coast vs accelerate over this hill or that corner.
<
p>The technology isn’t unique to hybrids- I think if more cars had them it would help us all become more efficient drivers.
Both of our vehicles have the displays that show the instantaneous mileage graphically (and large enough so you can get the idea with a quick glance – safety first). The feedback loop definitely works and like Wookie I’ve learned a lot in the process about how to drive more efficiently. The techniques on each car are somewhat different because one is a hybrid and one isn’t.
<
p>Of course, the smallest carbon footprint is still obtained by a parked car and I recommend doing that when possible!
It’s a much more fuel-efficient car, and, with rare exceptions (my annual road-trip and pilgrimage out to the midwest to visit relatives, and occasional roadtrips to NYC or elsewhere distant), depending on how much driving I do, I find that, most of the time, I only need to gas up once or twice a month!! It’s great! I love my car and have had no problems with it whatsoever. It would be cool if more cars were made into hybrids.
Inotherwords, I generally go the speed limit–65 mph on the highway or 55 mph, depending on what the posted speed limit is in a given area. In densely populated urban/suburban areas, and narrow country backroads, I drive slower.
Since I learned that the posted speed limit(s) are the fastest that one can drive under ideal conditions (i. e. a nice, dry, sunny day), I generally go slower under not-so-ideal conditions (i. e. at nighttime, rain, sleet, snow, ice), depoending on the severity of the above-mentioned weather conditions.
Check out this blog entry at Green Car Congress.
<
p>The American Trucking Association (ATA) is advocating that the national speed limit be reduced to 65 mph for all vehicles, and recommending that speed governors on trucks be set no higher than 68 mph.
<
p>Check out what happens when a bunch of kids can drive 55 in Atlanta: WARNING audio occasionally not work safe.
<
p>
<
p>WARNING audio occasionally not work safe.
I’ve seen this video before. At the end, one of them concludes that if it’s more dangerous obeying the law, perhaps the law can be changed. However, I think this experiment doesn’t necessarily lead to the conclusion. Much of the danger came from the fact that they were covering all the lanes, while the law in most states says that the left lane is for passing. If they were strictly obeying the law, they’d have moved right, and allowed others to pass on the left, which would’ve reduced the dangerous incidents they recorded. That would’ve been a more valid experiment relating to the conclusion (and might also have made an interesting video).
is it legal, strictly speaking, to pass on the left at speeds that exceed the speed limit? If not, than it’s not clear that riding 55 mph in the left in a 55 zone is illegal presuming there’s no flashing lights behind you.
<
p>As for leaving the left lane open and going 55, I think that would have been a much more dangerous situation, because impatient drivers behind them would have jockied to get to the left lane to pass, and that friction could have gotten ugly. Instead of a dangerous incident in the shoulder, I think there’d have been a number of dangerous incidents in the leftmost and center lanes behind the caravan of 55ers.
<
p>Methinks the video proves that the state ought to both (a) increase the fine for speeding, and (b) use that increased money to pay for more staties who can get out there and enforce the limit.
Which is what they did by blocking all lanes.
<
p>Very cool video, and shows that the limit ought to be increased or enforced.
<
p>But they could have, and should have, been ticketed for that stunt.
Or did the people behind them, jockeying to violate the speed limit, create unsafe driving conditions?
<
p>I don’t see how they created unsafe conditions. If they didn’t let an emergency vehicle get through, fair point. But, that didn’t happen.
<
p>That people were willing to speed past them in the breakdown lane is not a creation by the 55ers, its the responsibility of those who did violate the laws.
and antagonize others, you are creating unsafe conditions.
<
p>They should have been ticketed.
<
p>Same reason a car can be ticketed for doing the spped limit in unsafe conditions.
By definition, the only way to pass them was to speed. They weren’t blocking legal traffic.
<
p>Furthermore, they weren’t antagonizing in the sense that they weren’t communicating with others, swerving, cutting off, or performing any other unsafe maneuvers.
<
p>The elegance of their method is the only reason to dislike their tactics as a driver behind them was strictly because you wanted to break the law.
<
p>
<
p>I contend to you that, barring flashing lights behind the vehicle, a court would never uphold a ticket for driving too slow in any lane if that vehicle is pegged at precisely the speed limit. You don’t really even have an angle on driving in the left hand lane — after all, the driver in the left lane could rightfully argue that he was attempting to pass the vehicle to his right, but couldn’t top 55 and so was stuck driving next to the car on his right until that dang fool slowed to 54.
<
p>The responsibility of the unsafe drivers lies wholly on those unsafe drivers like the van driver who used the breakdown lane. Nobody driving 55 forced him to violate the speed limit, the prohibition of driving in the breakdown lane, or the “requirement” that you just plain don’t hit anything moving or parked if you can help it.
<
p>
<
p>P.S. To make it even more effective, you get about 20 volunteers. Then, the people in the front doing 55 are buffered from honking by those behind them, who are patiently waiting for a break in traffic to pass. The vehicles “not in on it” are about 4 rows back, and can’t reasonably be frustrated with the vehicles immediately in front of them, because they’d have no reason to believe the vehicles immediately in front of them were “in on it.” You’d have less darting in the breakdown lanes since it’d be farther to get past the front. You’d have less honking and aggressive driving because those who might be aggressive recognize they’ll have to get around 3 or 4 rows of cars who are believed to be just as “trapped”.
<
p>Want the same effect with fewer autos? Just have a statey drive down the road at the posted speed limit.
You can be logically correct, and still spend your day in traffic court.
<
p>Statute 89 – 4B requires that any vehicle must remain in right lane unless overtaking another vehicle.
<
p>Now, if you’re a smart ass and put together a flying wedge with you and your buddies driving precisely 55, each in his own lane, then I submit that the cop who sees the tie up will pull you over and cite you and yours for violation of the Statute above.
<
p>The same cop will show up for your hearing (mainly because in Mass, he gets 4 hours of overtime), and you’ll win, or you’ll lose, depending on the judge and the meaning of “overtaking”.
<
p>Because there are some persuasive arguments that says a preconceived plan not to overtake and pass is rightly NOT overtaking and passing. No?
<
p>And at the end of your day in court, you’ll having spent several hours of your time, several dollars of your cash and several points of your insurance.
<
p>And the flying wedge bozos in the video? Bozo says it all.
that there’s evidence that you were participating in the flying wedge.
<
p>There’s nothing to stop the left-most-driver from simply saying: “I was attempting to pass those guys on the right 3 lanes, but I hadn’t gained enough speed yet” or “I saw the cop and slowed down to the speed limit” or whatever.
<
p>Ultimately, would the cop or the judge know that it was, in fact, a conspiracy? Would they have any proof? I suppose they could ask and force you to perjure yourself or admit…
<
p>Note that the only the latter makes reference to the legal max; the former can be violated if the driver impedes the normal flow of traffic, without reference to the maximum.
<
p>Of course the traffic normally moves much faster than 55; this is true almost anywhere that 55 is the limit. Therefore they could have/should have been cited.
<
p>That the driver of the van, among others, could also have been cited for driving recklessly is not relevant. They impeded the flow of traffic, specifically because they knew it would create an unsafe condition; that’s why they brought the video equipment.
<
p>This doesn’t necessarily diminish their point, but it does make their statement of “civil obedience” a misnomer.
<
p>I suspect that they could also have been charged under a road rage statute, if GA has one, for deliberately provoking other drivers. Not all that different from the guy who brake checks a tailgater rather than just letting them by.
… the text you quoted also includes ‘reasonable’. One could certainly argue that the speeding traffic that one is blocking isn’t ‘reasonable’, even if it’s ‘normal’.
The video shot from the overpass would doom them.
<
p>Why would the statute read “reasonable” rather than the “legal maximum”?
<
p>Can you honestly argue that it is unreasonable to drive 60 mph?
… in a ‘real life’ context, but is it reasonable in a legal context? It is reasonable (heh) to conclude that breaking the law (speed limit) would be unreasonable by definition in a legal context. Self defense is legally reasonable, but only because it has be called out as such by the law. To the best of my knowledge, speeding for purposes of keeping with ‘normal traffic’ hasn’t be indicated as legally reasonable, common sense and real life notwithstanding. Indeed, I’ve been ticketed in such a context, as I’m sure many people have.
I don’t think that “reasonable” and legal are remotely co-extensive. You can be reasonably going 150 mph (because if you’re late, you’ll lose $$$$$, or because your passenger is in labor) but nevertheless be ticketed.
<
p>Indeed, you can be going a reasonable speed on an empty highway (60 mph) and get flagged. Or you can be one of a road full of cars doing 75 mph, and be the only one ticketed.
<
p>I think any one of these kids, plus the crazy van that lost its mirror, plus the finger-giving pickup, or all of them, could be ticketed.
<
p>Would be one of the more interesting traffic court sessions that has ever happened, to be sure.
The person could fight the ticket arguing that if the speed limit is 55, the state believes that 55 is in fact the reasonable movement speed of traffic on the road, and therefore he couldn’t possibly be impeding the reasonable movement if he was doing the limit.
<
p>It’s parsing — of course the normal speed is higher than 55, but that doesn’t make the most common speed reasonable. The law uses “and” between normal and reasonable, not “or” — if the person wasn’t impeding the reasonable movement of traffic, he wasn’t impeding “the normal and reasonable movement of traffic”. Is it reasonable that the reasonable movement of traffic is at a rate that violates the same bodies of law that stipulates that one must move reasonably fast?
<
p>Furthermore, if the person was driving 55 in a 55, he was certainly not driving at less than the maximum speed limit because 55 is not less than 55. In fact, the person could argue that he was in the left lane to pass, and he couldn’t travel faster than 55 to pass because that violates the speed limit, and he couldn’t drive slower than 55 because that violates (II), and therefore was stuck right next to the guy in lane 3 because the law prevented him from going any speed except exactly 55. If he slowed down to duck behind the car in lane 3, he’d violate (II). If he sped up, he’d violate the speed limit.
<
p>I suspect he could be “charged” with anything including road rage, but I don’t think it would stick. I just don’t see how you can charge a guy for provoking if he was (a) following all the rules of the road in a consistent, predicable manner, and (b) not attempting to communicate in any way with another driver. I think if you can show he was doing something ticket-able outside of road rage, you can get road rage too… but I remain unconvinced that a judge would let a ticket stick to the driver in the leftmost lane… which we all agree is the most precarious of the drivers w.r.t. the law.
<
p>Of course IANAL.
I think it falls down on account of the video, which shows they were out to do a stunt, that the stunt could reasonably be exepcted to create a hazard–even if it does so by provoking others–, and that they knew this ahead of time, hence the video.
<
p>Really, the only quibble I have is the “civil obedience” line. Otherwise, they make a decent point, in rather dramatic fashion, that the 55 limit is either too low or insufficiently enforced.
they suspected the results would be interesting. They didn’t know what they might be.
<
p>The videos in the car serve to record the empty space in front as well as the traffic behind, and to interview the drivers to capture a real time experiment. Yes, they’re also useful to capture actions like the driver of the white van, but the cameras in the car would have been useful anyway.
<
p>The video from the bridge captures an amazing sight, and one that would be appreciated by queueing theorists and traffic engineers.
<
p>The final edited video mixed an interesting experiment with their conclusions and commentary. I don’t think the mere fact that they recorded the actual event is indicative that they were doing a stunt as opposed to a [arguably legal] experiment. Sure, the interviews and the final cut undermine a claim that it was done “in the name of science” but that didn’t exist until after the event in which a driver (c/sh)ould have gotten a ticket.
<
p>There is a third conclusion, one in addition to too low or insufficiently enforced. One could simply conclude that most drivers on that road [and nearly all roads] drive too fast and have disdain for the law.
One would probably be right.
If you’re surrounded by cars going faster than you, the air on the road moves with them, and drag is reduced. I don’t know the numbers but I wouldn’t be surprised if the air resistance you get driving 65 on a moderately busy highway where people are mostly going 65, is about the same as what you’d get driving 55 on an empty road.
I don’t buy it. There’s just too much turbulence in the air. In a small [but long] tunnel maybe, but on the open road?
<
p>In any case, if the air molecules are going 65 mph and you’re going 55 mph you’ll get better mileage than if the air molecules are going 65 mph and you’re going 65 mph, so the velocity of the air molecules would seem to be irrelevant to relative improvements in mileage based on velocity of the auto.
Drafting is very effective, but as others have noted, you have to be really, really close to get a significant effect. Try bike racing if you want to get a very intuitive feel for this!
<
p>Not a whole lot of the air that your car pushes out of the way accelerates that much with you. Mostly, it just gets pushed to the side/top/bottom of you, swirls around a bit, and that’s it.
<
p>In a narrow tunnel with a low ceiling and no vents (maybe the Callahan?), you could probably get a good draft going with traffic, but not so much in the open air.
In the 70’s, when the 55 mph speed limit was introduced, cars usuallly had only 3-speed automatic transmissions. Now cars have at a minimum 4-speed automatics with an overdrive gear, and 5, 6 and even 7-speed transamissions are becoming common. The overdrive ratios help the engine to run slower at highway speeds, so that a modern car will generally get better milage at a given speed than a comparably-sized car of the 1970’s. Also, most modern cars (not SUV’s) are more aerodynamic than the brick-shaped cars of the 70’s (excluding the AMC Pacer LOL), so that they can go a higher speed before encountering the same amount of air resistance. Given the unenforceability of too-low speed limits, the 55 mph spped limit does not make sense on most highways today. But if people drove 65-70 instead of 80+ there would still be considerable savings. Given the advances in vehicle efficiency since the 1970’s, 65 is probably the equivalent of 55 back then anyway.
why do the “equivalent” of back then when we can do better? Furthermore, those advances are offset by two major factors: cars are much heavier now than 30 years ago, and they have far more horses under the hood.
<
p>It doesn’t matter what shape the vehicle is, air resistance increases with the square of the velocity — so going 65 mph always generates 40% more drag than 55 mph. That doesn’t mean it’s 40% less efficient of course, merely that the drag increases by 40%.
<
p>Furthermore, I’ve yet to see a legitimate report that showed a vehicle configuration that got higher mpg at 65 than 55. It’s theoretically possible if you tuned the gears so that 65 had low rpms and 55 always had high rpms, but vehicles simply aren’t built that way.
<
p>Given that 55 is both more fuel efficient and safer than 65 mph, the only arguments against 55 mph are that enforcement is insufficient to get that changed result. I think this is completely bogus. Everybody knows you can drive 5-9 mph over the limit without getting at ticket, but 10 mph+ over could get you some blue flashing lights, and 20+ over can lead to a reckless driving charge. None of that would change. If the limit were 55 instead of 65, nearly everybody would slow down by 10 mph because they set their speed as a function of their acceptable risk of getting a speeding ticket and, assuming that enforcement doesn’t change its frequency, that means that slowing down by 10 mph would maintain whatever risk you used to have… which is what I’d expect everybody to do.
<
p>No, the real reason we don’t have 55 mph speed limits is the same reason we don’t have higher gas taxes or even gas taxes in percentage form to increase as the price of gas increases — lack of political willpower. Americans just don’t want it, and our politicians know better than to restrict Americans in ways most Americans don’t want to be restricted.
Many cars, even midsize models, were available with manual transmissions not long ago, but now it is rare. Automakers need to bring back that option. I realize many automatic transmissions “lock-up” at higher speeds but overall the manual will save fuel.
<
p>From Edmunds.com “Standard vs. Automatic Transmission:….
the manual-shift car gets better gas mileage. If you don’t live in the city and don’t get stuck in traffic a lot, this is a money-saving alternative for you.”
<
p>Works for me, and in my opinion, it’s far more fun to drive.
Kudo’s to Cadillac – they offer manual transmissions on a variety of their models, but alas, mine’s just a Jeep.
Picked up an ’06 Corolla w/ manual transmission after Katrina and get exceptional mileage (35mpg commuting everyday). Ran the numbers and figured the breakeven point w/ a Prius would be around 400,000 miles, so that didn’t make much sense.
<
p>Back in the day, always thought that an auto tranny w/ a 4 cylinder car took away one cylinder just to power the tranny, leaving you 3 to get around. Significant mileage improvement and more fun to boot.
At $3.50 a gallon, the breakeven these days is about 200K, but a direct comparison is a little unfair. The Prius interior size is closer to a Camry than a Corolla, and it isn’t too difficult to hit the 50mpg mark with similar driving to what produces 35mpg in a Corolla. I’d (value judgement) place half the price difference in the cars on the hybrid/increased mpg and the other half in other areas, putting my ’04’s breakeven closer to 100K miles. Not unreasonable at all for a Toyota.
<
p>Of course, that could just be me rationalizing a bad purchasing decision, but YMMV. 🙂
but when I was looking I was trying to find a basic econobox commuter car for me. With the miles I drive, the more basic the better (wife has the fancy Pilot back on the South Shore to toodle around in, although start gulping when you quantify what a short trip costs nowadays). For me, the extra outlay to move to the Prius just wasn’t justified over the base Corolla (heck, I even purposely went looking for crank over power windows – last two cars I had for high mileage, a ’95 Saab 900 and a ’92 Volvo 240 started having junk break over 100k; wanted to avoid unnecessary part repair down the road).
First, I to love the stick, by with a job change came a lot more stop and go and it was driving me crazy…so I went with automatic this time.
<
p>I also went with front wheel drive instead of all wheel drive. Sure I noticed a big difference the 10 or so days a year that all wheel is better–so I’m a little more carefull those days. For the trade off, I get a couple of more mpg’s all year round. For most people and most circumstances, all wheel or 4 wheel drive is a waste of money and gas.
4 wheel drive usually implies a system which is not always engaged, it has to be turned on by the driver. When it is off there should be no extra burden placed on the motor. All wheel drive on the other hand is ALWAYS engaged, and I assume therefore is always less efficient regarding fuel usage.