10 Gas-Saving Tips for Drivers

May 10, 2008

Everyone knows gas is prohibitively expensive, and it’s only going to get worse. Here are some tips to help you make the most out of your $4 a gallon.

• Brake less. This one’s easy. The less you brake, the more you go — and get out of your gas.
• Coast, coast, coast. If I see a red light coming up I immediately take my foot off the gas. The goal here is to time it so that you coast to the red and hopefully by the time you get to it, it’ll be green and you may not have to brake at all. Keep looking ahead directly in front of you and a quarter mile ahead to see what you have to deal with and try to plan it out.
• Accelerate evenly and slowly. Try to keep your RPM’s below 2500. The faster and harder you accelerate, the harder your engine has to work.
• Avoid traffic when at all possible. Also a no brainer. This means stop and go traffic that’ll waste gas every time you brake.
• Take the high road. If you have a choice between taking the highway and taking the local streets, take the highway even if it’s a bit more of a trip (as long as it’s not rush hour). Local streets are full of stop lights and stop signs, and every time you brake, you’re wasting energy. Not to mention cruising at 50-60mph is the optimal speed for most cars’ fuel efficiency.
• Don’t fill up all the way. This one’s up to you, but I like to buy 10 gallons at a time. It’s easy to calculate your miles per gallon this way, and by not filling up you’re avoiding carrying around extra weight. But this can also backfire because it seems every time I turn around, the cost of gas rises.
• Chuck the fat. Related to the above tip, take out anything and everything you don’t need that you’re carrying around in your car. Extra weight means you pay more at the pump! But leave your spare tire.
• Try not to reverse. Going in reverse gear uses more energy than going forward, so when you park, try to leave ample space in front of you.
• Gravity is your friend. On the highway, try to accelerate when going downhill and maintain/let your foot off the gas a bit when going uphill. On the streets, I barely accelerate when going downhill. Use gravity to your advantage!
• Start converting hydrogen into fuel. Many people have successfully transformed their vehicles into using only HALF their normal gas use by converting their car to “run on water”. It is a proven, safe technology that we all should be using.

That’s all I can think of for now. Implementing these changes gave me an immediate 10-20% mileage increase, except for the last tip, which should give you a 50% increase! Want to share some of your tips? Leave them in the comments.

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