My dad was always “one of those guys” who went like 5 mph under the speed limit and did NOT go above 55 mph on the highway. He would take his foot off the eccelerator like a mile before the stoplight and coast to the light. This drove me crazy! But he always said it was to save on gas mileage…the thing is, I never understood why he would need to go to such drastic measures to save a few pennies on a tank of gas, especially when it was 0.95 cents per gallon.
Now that I am married, on a budget and gas is about 4 times what it was 10 years ago, I find myself doing the same things my dad did that drove me crazy. I’m the old lady driver in the right lane going the speed limit as other drivers speed pass me. Not only did I slow my driving down from about 7-80mph to 60-65mph, I don’t speed off the starting line when the light turns green like a racing horse out of the gate anymore. If I would have done this when I had my xterra there’s no telling how much gas I could have saved. I could have gone from 16mpg to 23 mpg…but who knows for sure. But now that I have a car that gets close to 30 mpg and has a display for an estimated mpg for each tank of gas, I’ve turned it into a game to see how high I can get it. I’ve had it up to 36 mpg at one time–amazing!
I’ve heard of people getting bumper stickers that say stuff like “I’m driving slow to save gas” I’ve come up with my own bumper sticker but I can’t get it printed because I can’t have that type of language on my car- ;). It’s simply a play on words and honestly I find it pretty humorous. I’ll let you fill in the blank with whatever makes you happy–but it would say “Unless your going to pay for my gas, get off my —” Funny huh?! But now you see why I can’t use it.
Bottom line–slow down your driving and you’ll see a big difference in your gas mileage.
