|
If there was a 10 dollar bill would you pick it up off the sidewalk? If you could reduce the amount of pollution you produce at no cost wouldn't you?
Draft.
I already said it but to really put this in perspective the person who you are drafting off of gets a bonus in mpg as well.
a .01% bonus on every other car in the us saves 1.3 million gallons of fuel or 2.6 million dollars.
Drafting allows me to hold my throttle just slightly higher than idle and cruise at 65. I'm using virtually no HP. The last few trips I've managed to find an RV this last time and a Semi the time before that stayed with me for 180 miles. Over that range I used 3.7 gallons and 3.8 gallons(48 and 47 mpg respectively). Either way thats a 38% improvement in FE.
I'll be conservative and I'll just say 10% for the purpose of calculating how much fuel is wasted by not drafting for the average driver.
1185978261 gallons of fuel per year in the US(Assumed avg vehicle gets 23 mpg, that only half of the cars would get a bonus, 50 million cars total, goes 12,000 miles a year, and a 10% increase in FE for the following car) plus the 1.3 million gallons saved by the car being drafted off of. And thats a modest estimate considering I can get 10% off of another small car(Civic 2 dr) and there are plenty of large trucks, rvs, SUVs and regular old trucks. Also if you link those chains at safe distances all but 2 of the cars get a push and hide inside someone else's envelope.
It is ecologically and economically responsible to draft at safe/legal ranges. If you aren't comfortable with it then its unsafe for you, but if you are then by all means be careful but do it.
Berkeley did a test that used small magnets embedded in the highway along with a radar gun at the nose of the car. The lead car followed the magnets and the following cars just had to stay exactly 21 feet behind the car in front of them. They did it with 7 cars and outside of standard cruise control they showed there was a substantial improvement in Fuel economy just from a Buick Lesabre drafting off of another Lesabre. They also tested the system at 5 feet and the results were much better but very few people could maintain that distance without burning up extra gas.
|