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Is hypermiling dangerous?
Posted By katie allison granju
Blogger Rob Lloyd says hypermilers remind him of…his grandmother:
As the price of gas goes up, so does the number of strategies for alleviating pain at the pump. Some drivers are push-starting their cars, forking out for expensive additives, and drafting behind tractor-trailors. But one of the most talked about ways is Hypermiling.
Basically, Hypermiling is a strategy to improve your gas mileage by changing the way you drive. Some of the techniques are:
Brake less, coast more.
Keep moving. Weave in traffic. Avoid full stops.
Accelerate slowly. Drive slower.
Does Hypermiling work? One of my colleagues in the newsroom swears by it.Weave in traffic…avoid full stops…drive slower? I think, where have I heard those before? And then I remember: from my mother… who voluntarily hung up her car keys this year because she found herself drifting between lanes, coasting through stop signs, and doing 35 in a 50. She was hypermiling without even realizing it. But what she did realize was that she was endangering her life and the lives of others.
Hypermiling means driving like Miss Daisy.
And it seems like a pretty risky way to get 23 miles to the gallon instead of 22.
Jun 30th, 2008
Absolutely! Safe driving is predictable driving. Driving is predictable when we are all going relatively the same speed. That’s why the speed cameras on I-40 West in North Carolina around exit 33 are dangerous. The speed limit drops from 70 to 60 just before the cameras which are positioned around a corner on a downhill slope. So if I slow to the speed limit, the 18 wheelers which are required to be in the right hand lane come barreling over me. That’s not safe! What would be safe would be me doing the speed of traffic which was closer to 70mph.
Hypermiling is dangerous.
I guess if we all hypermiled and saved 1 mpg per day for a year, that would be 365 x 200 million cars / 25mph = saving of almost 3 billion gallons of gas a year…maybe there is something to this hypermiling after all!
There’s nothing wrong with accelerating slower…and not rushing between junctions in a city environment. There’s no use racing to a red light!