Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecky
Generally speaking, having cars get behind a slow driver tends to save fuel for everyone. Maybe the drivers are annoyed by the slow driver, but that driver is certainly not hurting their economy.
In many cases, eco-drivers will greatly improve the economy of tens, or even hundreds of cars in a traffic jam by moving at the average rate of traffic, rather than accelerating and braking. Cars behind them end up doing the same thing, and the gas savings are multiplied.
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I agree that there are many times when you actually can "impose" fuel savings onto wasteful drivers if you know what you are doing. The Prius controls the kinetic ripple, so if you know what you are doing, you can control it somewhat. Kinetic energy is "something in motion tends to stay in motion", and the best way to do this is to not create the kinetic ripple in the first place. If traffic is flowing at 75 mph, but has to temporarily slow to a 65 mph speed limit to navigate around a Prius that is clogging the flow, and then speeds back up to 75, there will be a large ripple in the kinetic energy that will be continuously wasting fuel. If you steady the flow of stop and go traffic by not racing up to the car in front of you and slamming on the brakes, you may be able to actually keep the cars behind you at a more steady pace, preserving the kinetic energy.