Comments on: EcoDriving 101 – Driving Without Brakes

By: michael

michael — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:38:22 +0000

I’m unclear why, whether in the city or the highway, drivers leave so little space between themselves and the car in front. Besides saving a little gas, leaving a little room just makes driving easier for everyone. And I don’t think using the gas and brake to keep yourself as close to the car in front of you as possible gets anyone anywhere any quicker.

But, that’s how people drive. And, for suckers like me who don’t tailgate, the empty space in front of my car is an invitation for other drivers to move a car length ahead.

By: brv

brv — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:39:56 +0000

Using the brakes as little as possible certainly has advantages for fuel economy and traffic security – you habe to plan your driving more carefully. I’ve done this for quite a few years in Sweden and it certainly improves mileage. But there is a tremendous downside to it, at least if you drive in a climate with a lot of rain, snow and thawing salt on the roads: the brake discs rust, the brake pads wear the discs unevenly, and eventually only part of the disc is used by the pads. A 50% reduction is disc use in not uncommon!. The result is that you first loose the possibility to brake efficiently in emergency situations, and secondly, you needs to change the brake discs AND pads long before you normally would have to. This is quite expensive, and not very economic to the ecology. The problem is quite common in Scandinavia.
If you are into “driving without brakes”, make sure you inspect your brake discs every month – the process of uneven wear is fast and can be irreversible in 3-4 months. The rear brake discs are usually affected first. At the first signs of uneven wear you should start using your brakes more often.

By: Addedoerymn

Addedoerymn — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 03:50:06 +0000

Thanks the author!

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:10:58 +0000

Of course, a limitation to the technique arises when driving during rush hour through the El Toro Y in Southern California where every driver around you seems to cuts you off as you coast because they want to fill even the smallest space between you and the car ahead with themselves (thus causing even more stop and go traffic for everybody behind you).

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:43:47 +0000

Sri, even a mechanical storage of some sort would still be considered a hybrid. On that note, there are a few companies out there trying to do exactly as you have asked. I’ve heard of a range of ideas from storing power in a flywheel, battery, powering the alternator with braking power and a few more that I can’t remember off the top of my head. Its definitly being looked into as manufacturers are finally seeing the huge benefits that hybrids can provide.

By: sri

sri — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:10:05 +0000

Nice article. This started me to wonder why not convert this break energy to some form of static energy (battery, spring…) , store and release it back when we need to accelerate again. I know few hybrids convert them to battery power, but how about for non-hybrids?

By: Jeff nicklen

Jeff nicklen — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:33:52 +0000

Good article. Driving without brakes also makes a driver pay good attention to what is happening up front and also behind you. Resulting in better safer drivers.
I have always been amazed to see freeway drivers totally unaware, until the last minute, that they are about to rear-end the car in front of them, causing a need for heavy braking and the potential for multiple pile-ups.
One item you missed was traffic lights versus traffic circles.
The US always uses traffic lights as the default design at a road intersection. In Europe, the default design is a circle.
A traffic light mandates that 90% of the time you have to stop at an intersection. At a European traffic circle (properly designed and with right of way understood by all) you get through the circle without stopping 90% of the time. This results in significant energy and pollution savings.