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Old 05-26-2016, 02:20 AM   #21 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EVmetro View Post
Exactly. The eco driver may not be the one doing something wrong, and there is a never ending supply of drivers who do what you just described. This accurately describes the never ending changes in the kinetic energy of all the cars who are passing the eco driver. The fuel waste is indeed the fault of the guy who can't manage his kinetic energy, but in the case of many eco drivers, much of the blame goes to them as well. The Prius in the left lane with nobody in front of him and 20 cars behind him is introducing resistance in traffic flow that will waste far more fuel than the few drops that the Prius saves. If the Prius driver were to stay right and out of the way so that the rest of the traffic could flow normally. there would be fewer changes of kinetic energy.
I think most motorists when not using cruise control are spazzes. They couldn't hold a steady speed if their lives depended on it. The eco driver no doubt in some cases introduces a kinetic ripple but then again the whole damn thing is a series of ripples anyway.

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Old 05-26-2016, 02:38 AM   #22 (permalink)
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Ah, yes, the "slinky-oscillation" method of convoying!
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Old 05-26-2016, 04:06 AM   #23 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by MetroMPG View Post
I think people see what they want to see and conclude it's the dominant behavior: "disruptive Prius drivers" and "bad BMW drivers" and "Mustang drivers crashing into things when leaving cars & coffee events."

Confirmation bias: a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions, leading to statistical errors.
Couldn't agree more.

Except for Mustangs and Cars & Coffee. That one is demonstrably true, going by the sheer amount of video evidence online.
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Old 05-26-2016, 08:38 AM   #24 (permalink)
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Where I live, the dominant behavior is to drive like you want to get somewhere, and the vehicle in which people do that is a secondary detail. I think a lot of people purchase the Prius so they can get good fuel mileage and they don't have to think about how it happens - which is a defining characteristic of how they drove before they had a Prius.

To their credit, they chose a Prius. That they leave a tremendous amount of potential unrealized is unfortunate, but that's a product of their habits. They nevertheless opted for a thriftier vehicle.

When you think about it, there aren't many vehicles out there that will do more for you automatically than a Prius. Is it any surprise, then, that they aren't driven in a mindful manner? The vehicle itself doesn't encourage mindful behavior.
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Old 05-26-2016, 09:06 AM   #25 (permalink)
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I'd like to add that it's not the Prius that's the problem, it's whomever is driving that Prius. Is there some quality in a Prius that tends to attract drivers that have this behavior you don't like? Maybe, maybe not.
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Old 05-26-2016, 11:40 AM   #26 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by acparker View Post
I would have to say that, in my admittedly limited experience driving through the Sacramento area, driving slow in the fast lane is not an activity limited to prious drivers.

Lol, very true. The Prius seems to be the dominant offender, but I see all kinds of vehicles interrupting the smooth flow.
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Old 05-26-2016, 11:48 AM   #27 (permalink)
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I had one of those situations this morning. An Aveo sedan was all over my bumper for not trying to catch up with the cars ahead of us. Long story short, we're looking at almost 20 miles of effectively no passing. If traffic is sparse you can pick off one or two here and there, but in the morning commute you're looking at blocks of 10 or 20 cars- you're not passing the whole group and there aren't any holes to fit into. Even if you succeed with a pass, congratulations! You're now one car ahead in that 20 mile long line. There's a mile long climbing lane, but you're not going to pass a group of 10 cars- half of which are trying to pass the other half, who think "two lanes, it's a different kind of road now and I can drive faster." Oh, and past that is a detour with a stop sign.

So this Aveo strained uphill past me to catch up with the line of cars that was approaching the stop sign. And being in an Aveo, she had to wait at the stop sign for a huge gap in traffic before she could proceed. I wasn't upset at being delayed by her at the stop sign because I knew we'd catch up to the larger mass of cars soon enough, and when the road really opened up in a few more miles her pass would get her there one car length sooner, and me one car length later. Over 40 miles that's not really a delay, and now I had a draft instead of just someone filling my wake.

Many people are just plain stupid. They don't understand simple things, and traffic patterns are apparently complicated. I don't take the blame for wastefulness created by people reacting to my attempts to minimize my own waste: If Happy gets mad at me and punches Bob Barker, I don't really give a #V(%; he's an idiot and it's on him.

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Originally Posted by Vman455 View Post
... they're calling your anecdotal evidence into question because it is anecdotal evidence.
To me it's not so damning that EVmetro loves the anecdotal, it's the assignment of responsibility. We're all responsible for our own actions unless we're irrationally annoyed by someone else's perfectly reasonable behavior? Wrongheaded statements like that make me so mad I'm going to stomp on my glasses. We all know whose fault it'll be, so I'll PM EVmetro a pic of the bill for replacing them.
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Old 05-26-2016, 11:54 AM   #28 (permalink)
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I'd like to add that it's not the Prius that's the problem, it's whomever is driving that Prius. Is there some quality in a Prius that tends to attract drivers that have this behavior you don't like? Maybe, maybe not.
So true. I don't have driving experience in a Prius, but I suspect that there may be instrumentation that would help the driver achieve better fuel efficiency, at least for his own vehicle. I have used the Scangauge2 back in the old days, and found that if I used it religiously to drive more efficiently, it really boosted my economy. I suspect that there is more to it than just the Prius driver driving for economy. Perhaps the Prius attracts a large number of blah people who are clueless about driving. The Prius itself seems to be a remarkable machine, but perhaps many of the drivers are not exactly car enthusiasts.

In defense of the eco drivers who drive the Prius, if efficiency for your own fuel is your only concern, doing 55 in the hammer lane will indeed yield better efficiency, but if overall usage of fossil fuels and its impact on the environment is your concern, you will have to eco drive more wisely, and in a way that may increase your own fuel consumption from time to time. Driving the speed of traffic may use a little more fuel in your own car, but could save a lot more fuel for everybody else.
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Old 05-26-2016, 12:02 PM   #29 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by elhigh View Post
Where I live, the dominant behavior is to drive like you want to get somewhere, and the vehicle in which people do that is a secondary detail. I think a lot of people purchase the Prius so they can get good fuel mileage and they don't have to think about how it happens - which is a defining characteristic of how they drove before they had a Prius.

To their credit, they chose a Prius. That they leave a tremendous amount of potential unrealized is unfortunate, but that's a product of their habits. They nevertheless opted for a thriftier vehicle.

When you think about it, there aren't many vehicles out there that will do more for you automatically than a Prius. Is it any surprise, then, that they aren't driven in a mindful manner? The vehicle itself doesn't encourage mindful behavior.
Excellent, I agree. one of the biggest things that I know of that can be done to achieve better economy is to purchase a vehicle that is fuel efficient in the first place. I love to watch people do mods on their cars for better economy, but just selecting an efficient vehicle does wonders.
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Old 05-26-2016, 12:14 PM   #30 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Charlie View Post

Many people are just plain stupid. They don't understand simple things, and traffic patterns are apparently complicated. I don't take the blame for wastefulness created by people reacting to my attempts to minimize my own waste:
The wasteful drivers will never stop being wasteful idiots, and there is a never ending supply of them on the road. Minimizing your own waste is golden, but in many situations, minimizing your own waste will maximize the waste of the never ending supply of wasteful idiots. The burden of common sense is on you if you care about waste, but if you impose your driving style onto the wasteful drivers, there is even more waste. Once you master minimizing your own waste, you can expand to minimizing the waste of the wasteful idiots.

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