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I noticed this when I started hypermiling. Usually, when I was a left laner, I was the one flipping back and forth trying to get another car ahead and going gas/brake, gas/brake.
I noticed another advantage to hypermiling and similar to this. There is one merge where there is a busy 3 lane onramp entering my 8 lane divided highway on the right. One by one the lanes merge and end. In my left lane days I ALWAYS was in the left lane and had to come to almost a complete stop when this traffic merged down into our 4 lanes. Then I would gas/brake, gas/brake along for maybe ¼ to ½ mile to get out of it. Traveling at 60 mph (psl 65 mph) in the right lane I noticed that I would not even have to slow down most days. In fact I might have to slow down, not stop, once every 2 or 3 weeks. What I see is that I used to be right in a pack and would have to brake because all the other vehicles were braking. For some reason, by me going a few mph slower, I am just about always between the packs of vehicles when I reach this merge. Also the merging vehicles all zip over to the left ASAP and cause those lanes to have more traffic entering and everyone leaving the left lanes.
I know I am not adjusting my speed to avoid the traffic, this is my regular commute and I have the speeds down. I come to the top of a hill before this spot doing 55 mph, and I can see the traffic merging ahead. I accelerate to 60 mph (slight downhill) just before the merge and by the time all the lanes have merged (slight uphill) I am going 55 mph and hit my exit at 50 mph FASing to the light with just enough speed so as not to piss folks behind me off.
Just thought it was interesting that by going a little slower than the major flow of traffic I have avoided using brakes for this merge.
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