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Old 08-09-2015, 12:30 PM   #5 (permalink)
redpoint5
Human Environmentalist
 
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Oregon
Posts: 12,470

Acura TSX - '06 Acura TSX
90 day: 24.19 mpg (US)

Lafawnda - CBR600 - '01 Honda CBR600 F4i
90 day: 47.32 mpg (US)

Big Yeller - Dodge/Cummins - '98 Dodge Ram 2500 base
90 day: 21.82 mpg (US)

Chevy ZR-2 - '03 Chevrolet S10 ZR2
90 day: 17.14 mpg (US)

Model Y - '24 Tesla Y LR AWD
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Too many complaints to bother listing them all.

One of my biggest complaints is when people pass me on a straight section of road, and then brake hard for corners. I don't brake for corners, but am often forced to because of traffic ahead of me.

It seems most people are not looking ahead and anticipating what traffic is doing. I had a coworker tell me that she almost honked in rage at me when she was behind my car accelerating onto an onramp. It always slows down at the merge point, so I allowed a gap to initially form so that I didn't have to brake, but she thought it was crazy that I didn't just fill the space with my car and then later brake when it slows down.

My friend treats the throttle like an on-off switch. His speed fluctuates by 10 MPH on the freeway as he goes above the speed limit, takes his foot off the gas, goes below the speed limit, and then accelerates hard past the speed limit again. The transmission downshifts at each one of these acceleration cycles. He has gone through at least 1 transmission in every vehicle he owns. Lexus ES 350, Acura MDX, Ford Ranger... he says they all have poorly built transmissions. Meanwhile I've never had a transmission fail on me.

I once experimented in stop and go Portland traffic with driving the average speed of traffic. This means when traffic speeds up, I allow a gap to develop between the car in front of me. When traffic slows down the gap closes. This minimizes braking and allows me to get better fuel economy in stop and go traffic than on the freeway. My assumption was that it would take me significantly longer to arrive at my destination due to people cutting in to fill the gap. I kept a tally of cars, adding 1 to the total every time a car moved in to the gap, and subtracted 1 every time the car directly ahead of me moved out of my lane. In 1 hour of driving, only 9 more cars moved into the gap as moved out of it. In other words, my commute was likely only 30 seconds longer than if I had driven bumper to bumper. It also improved the fuel economy of everyone behind me since they too drove at the average speed instead of accelerating and braking all of the time.
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The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to redpoint5 For This Useful Post:
ChewChewTrain (08-10-2015), JRMichler (08-09-2015), larrybuck (08-28-2015), RedDevil (08-09-2015)