Published: July 01, 2008 09:23 pm            

STEPHANIE SALTER: Slow down, you move too fast; got to make the fuel last

TERRE HAUTE — The funniest thing happens when you drive the speed limit: You notice all the people who don’t.

You also save a fair amount of gasoline without sacrificing some huge chunk of time that might make the extra fuel expense worth it.

An inveterate speeder, I’ve usually been too busy maneuvering in and out of the passing lane while looking for cops to appreciate the scene from the legal-limit side of the road. A recent trip to Dubuque, however, opened my eyes — and lightened my foot on the accelerator.

I guess I’m like the cigarette smoker who cites one price hike too many as the catalyst for finally kicking the addiction. Gas at more than $4 a gallon, with no appreciable drop in sight (ever again, folks), has been my inspiration for doing what I should have done long ago: slow down.

Mapquest predicted the Iowa trip would take 5 hours and 39 minutes for 346 miles. I made it in 5:45, even though I stopped for 15 minutes in LeRoy, Ill. — not to gas up, but to indulge my inner fast-food junkie at McDonald’s.

When I hit Dubuque, I had between a quarter and one-third of a tank of fuel remaining in my 11-year-old Honda Accord. I figure I averaged about 30 mpg.

But for a few lapses when I wasn’t on cruise control, I stuck very close to the speed limit. (No more than two or three miles, Officer, honest.) For most of the trip, that limit was 65 mph because Illinois caps its highway speeds, including interstates, at 65, and the north-south stretch I did in Iowa was on U.S. 61, also 65 mph, max.

Mindful of just how badly fuel efficiency starts to drop at speeds above 60 mph (see related story), I took care not to go over the allowed 70 mph maximum on I-74 in Indiana. It was pretty much trucks and me in the right lane. Same thing at 65 mph in Illinois and Iowa, only more so.

I concluded that whatever the posted speed limit is, almost no one (but commercial truckers) drives at or under it.

New cars and old ones passed me. Gas-guzzling SUVs and pickups passed me, usually as if I were standing still. A truck pulling a boat passed me. So did a truck pulling a horse trailer. A van hauling a portable “luxury” restroom zoomed by, as did a 1980s vintage Cadillac that was driven by a wizened, white-haired gent with his wizened, white-haired wife riding shotgun.

Occasionally, an 18-wheeler pulled around and left me in its dust. This happened most often in Illinois, where trucks are held to 55 mph on I-74. But most of the big-rig drivers seemed to stick to the limit.

To my astonishment, a Hummer also passed me (Lordy, the gas!), but unless I missed it, not once did a Prius, Insight or other hybrid feel the need to trade fuel for time.

The people who made me the craziest were those who drove as if they were on a German autobahn, where there is, generally, no maximum speed limit. They would roar up behind my car while I was passing a truck or the rare, slower automobile and ride my tail until I could get around and back in the right lane.

Even at my most lead-footed, I never drove that way. As a California Highway Patrol officer told me long ago, “You tailgate, you’ve got no margin for error. You tailgate in the passing lane, you’ve got a death wish.”

You also waste a colossal amount of fuel.

The driving research Web site, edmunds.com, road tested the most popular gas-saving tips for efficacy. No. 1 on the editors’ list of best advice was to ditch “aggressive driving” for moderate. Taking the “long view of the road” and going easy on the brakes, edmunds found, can result in saving “unbelievable amounts of gas.”

How unbelievable? The biggest reduction the editors managed in one of their moderate vs. aggressive test drives was 37 percent; the average was 31.

Some of the other more-effective measures were lowering speeds (average 12 percent reduction), avoiding “excessive idling” (up to 19 percent, depending on length of idle) and using cruise control for long trips on fairly consistent terrain (average 7 percent).

The great air-conditioning debate, edmunds and other researchers have found, is not much of an argument for contemporary vehicles. At speeds higher than 50 mph, A.C. and closed windows eat about as much fuel as does no A.C. and open windows. Below 50, it’s another story.

One other benefit of driving the speed limit that I discovered on my trip is greatly reduced SPM — stress per mile. It’s a natural byproduct of combining moderate driving, cruise control and the solid knowledge that no cop — even in an unmarked car — is going to pull you over for going too fast.



Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.

        

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