James SQF: Sorry about that...I didn't see your post when I replied. As far as traffic spacing goes, I did address that elsewhere in the book when I talked about following distances. My opinion on people cutting in is, and pretty well remains...so what? What's going to happen then? You'll need to back off to increase following distance, then another car will cut in. Back off more, and another car cuts in. So, your average speed winds up slightly lower than most other cars...but what else is new lol? I mean, I doubt anyone who's serious about hypermiling isn't familiar with the concept of getting passed.
At some point, you will reach an equilibrium speed where people are going so much faster than you that you don't have to slow down to increase folling distance...in my experience, 5 to 8 mph below the traffic speed. Obviously, that threshold rises or falls with traffic speed and spacing, but it does come at some point. So, personally, I don't treat traffic any differently than I would anywhere else...you're going to go slower than average. That's just the nature of the beast. I figure that sooner or later, I'll make up the time by not stopping for gas. Might only be once a week, but one 15-minute gas stop still subtracts 5 mph on average from a 100-mile weekly commute at 50 mph. So...meh.
However, I did mention in the braking chapter a bit about light timing. All of this is only true if you catch the same number of lights as the other drivers. Catch one more light, and you might have just shot your FE savings. So, considering that most places that time lights time them at 5 mph under the speed limit, that's the practical threshold for going slower than traffic. Faster, you're wasting gas...slower, you're idling at stoplights.
Redpoint5: lol...Yeah, well...it's been my experience that that the masses usually like stuff that they think the masses wouldn't like. Personally, I'm more worried about appealing to my own, younger generation than I am older ones. There are a lot of little pop culture and internet references in the book along those lines. I think I even used the word "lol'd" at one point. So, as long as you liked it, then that's all that matters to me
As far as the following distances in drafting go: yup. You're right, and no, I didn't get into it. Just going from the Mythbusters test, I believe there was a 26 percent improvement at 100 feet. I was playing with the idea of mentioning it, but I'm kind of avoiding it for a couple of reasons. 1) I wouldn't even have talked about drafting, if it weren't just due process, and 2) since the average person would even react to the truck stopping at 100 feet until 4 feet before they hit it, I thought that might just be setting them up for a harder impact if they are dumb enough to draft. Hit a truck from ten feet away after it brakes, and the speed difference between you and the truck is maybe 5 mph. Hit it from 100 feet (when the truck has had longer to slow down) and the speed differential might be 20 mph or more.
So, if you're going to be close enough to the truck that you'll hit it no matter what, you're better off riding two feet from its bumper than you are 100 feet. So, you can probably see why I didn't get into the distance thing. I'm all for due process and all, but there's no sense in offering any more encouragement than necessary. Know what I mean?
And, yep, that surprised me too...you'd think someone would have done something like this before now. But everything on the shelves along the same lines has at least one calculus equation in it, and they read like encyclopedias. Even I had trouble not nodding off for some of them. Probably the only reason that I'm not the same way is that this stuff has always been a hobby for me...I never went to school for engineering, aeronautics or any of that. I just read a lot. And, I work alone. But if I had professors, students or co-workers to impress, it probably would have turned out the same way. Ahhh, vanity...my favorite sin