June 26th, 2008 by Jemaleddin Cole

With gas prices hovering around four dollars a gallon, I, like everyone else, have been feeling the pinch. And it has been particularly bad because my fuel efficiency has been down and my driving has been up, as I’ve spent a good deal of time racing back and forth to Baltimore to see my lady fair. Completely worthwhile, I assure you. But in order to mitigate the cost, I’ve been trying to adjust my driving habits in recent days.

Driving like a madman through the city costs me 14% of my fuel efficiency: that’s a dip from my normal 22 miles per gallon down to 19. Ouch. When combined with the extra mileage of at least 40 miles every other day, it’s been quite a painful experience at the pump.

So lately I’ve been more conscious of my driving habits. No more jack-rabbit starts. No more flooring it to make a yellow light. No more flying up an on-ramp at a greater speed that the cars actually driving on the highway. And it’s done wonders for my pocketbook: where I was getting 19 mpg driving like a jerk, I’m getting 24 mpg nowadays.

And while you might think that saving some gas and money would make me happy, you’d be fooling yourself. I have to drive in Maryland: home of the oblivious driver. As far as I can tell, there are no suggestions made at Maryland driving schools that slower traffic should keep right. Getting into the turn lane before you slow down so that cars behind you don’t have to come to an almost complete stoo? Unheard of. It seems that it’s the goal of the Maryland driver to do everything possible to frustrate everyone else on the road.

But changing all of that just so I could eke out another 1 or 2 miles per gallon seems selfish, so I’m only going to request one tiny thing of the people of Maryland, and it only requires a change of attitude, not behavior: when you cut me off on the highway, don’t get mad when I tailgate you - if you’re going to make me slow down, you could at least let me draft off you.

2 Responses to “Aiming for Fuel Economy: A new source of frustrations”

1. Hey, what happened to the hemp conspiracies? Too “soapboxy” for ya? ;o)

   — jet June 27th, 2008 at 6:17 pm #

2. Indeed. Even people that I might kinda marginally find ways to agree with - or at least think are kookily sympathetic - have to stay within the bounds of the comment policy. Of course, to abide by the policy, it really ought to lay out exactly what I consider a bad comment. Instead it just says, “I make the rules! Do what I want you to have done or pay the consequences!”

   And when you think about it, that’s how rules always seem to work.

   — Jemaleddin Cole June 28th, 2008 at 7:43 am #

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