There are so many articles these days about how if you drive 5 mph under the limit and if you accelerate very slowly from each light you will save a few bucks on gas.
I can buy that, it makes perfect sense that driving more conservativly will save a little bit of gas. Heck, we could walk everywhere at 5mph and save an infinite amount of gas. But at what point is the gas savings unjustified by the time wasted?
Lets say you have a 30 mile commute, all highway miles.
One option is to drive normally, with the flow of traffic, ~80mph on the highway. Driving like this, the commute will take you 22.5 minutes. Not bad.
The other option is to drive 5mph under the limit, 50mph, to increase your car's fuel economy. Driving like this, the commute will take you about 36 minutes. A 14 minute increase.
Lets also assume you are paid the equivalent of $20/hr AFTER taxes. Based on all the brag posts about how much people make around here this is probably a very low estimate.
Your 14 minutes wasted on the commute cost you $4.66, which AFAIK is more than 1 gallon of pretty much anywhere.
Now, if your conservative driving increased your gas mileage so much that you actually saved a good bit more than 1 gallon of gas each direction on your commute, congrats you made the right decision.
However, I find that extremely unlikely. I drive with zero concern for gas, and I get about 25 mpg. Lets assume for the sake of argument that driving super conservatively would increase my gas mileage to 100 mpg. I know this is absurdly unrealistic, but I want to show that even in the most extreme case driving slow to save gas is a really stupid thing to do.
Currently, at 25 mpg, I use about 1.2 gallons of gas to commute 30 miles.
In theory, at 100mpg, I would use 0.3 gallons of gas to commute 30 miles. A net gain of .9 gallons, which is nice, but I could more than .9 gallons of gas with the $4.66 I make in 14 minutes.
Of course, with a more realistic numbers (I honestly don't think you could improve your gas mileage by much more than 30%) the "savings" from driving slow are even further in the negative.
So, in summary. If you have a decent job, driving slow to save money is a really stupid thing to do. If you want to drive slow for other reasons, go for it knock yourself out- but don't do it because you think it will save you money.
I can buy that, it makes perfect sense that driving more conservativly will save a little bit of gas. Heck, we could walk everywhere at 5mph and save an infinite amount of gas. But at what point is the gas savings unjustified by the time wasted?
Lets say you have a 30 mile commute, all highway miles.
One option is to drive normally, with the flow of traffic, ~80mph on the highway. Driving like this, the commute will take you 22.5 minutes. Not bad.
The other option is to drive 5mph under the limit, 50mph, to increase your car's fuel economy. Driving like this, the commute will take you about 36 minutes. A 14 minute increase.
Lets also assume you are paid the equivalent of $20/hr AFTER taxes. Based on all the brag posts about how much people make around here this is probably a very low estimate.
Your 14 minutes wasted on the commute cost you $4.66, which AFAIK is more than 1 gallon of pretty much anywhere.
Now, if your conservative driving increased your gas mileage so much that you actually saved a good bit more than 1 gallon of gas each direction on your commute, congrats you made the right decision.
However, I find that extremely unlikely. I drive with zero concern for gas, and I get about 25 mpg. Lets assume for the sake of argument that driving super conservatively would increase my gas mileage to 100 mpg. I know this is absurdly unrealistic, but I want to show that even in the most extreme case driving slow to save gas is a really stupid thing to do.
Currently, at 25 mpg, I use about 1.2 gallons of gas to commute 30 miles.
In theory, at 100mpg, I would use 0.3 gallons of gas to commute 30 miles. A net gain of .9 gallons, which is nice, but I could more than .9 gallons of gas with the $4.66 I make in 14 minutes.
Of course, with a more realistic numbers (I honestly don't think you could improve your gas mileage by much more than 30%) the "savings" from driving slow are even further in the negative.
So, in summary. If you have a decent job, driving slow to save money is a really stupid thing to do. If you want to drive slow for other reasons, go for it knock yourself out- but don't do it because you think it will save you money.
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