Currently on a Florida road trip ... random efficiency thoughts

[Gasoline Fumes]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

God's Waiting Room

That needs to go on Florida's license plates!

[MetroMPG]

(Above - a Google maps screen shot of a typical I-75 ramp near Wesley Chapel, FL.)

Observation #7:


I'm back in Ontario now, and had this realization...

Interstate on-ramps in the southern states I passed through are quite short. They're expecially short considering the speed limit on the connecting freeway might be 70 MPH / 113 km/h. (So traffic may be going 75+ MPH / 121 km/h)

On some of these ramps, it would be a real challenge to get up to speed and "zipper merge" into the flow traffic in a relatively low-powered and/or heavy vehicle.

I think I now understand why some people/car reviewers are nervous about cars like the Mitsubishi Mirage (74 hp 2014-2015; 78 hp 2017+). On some of these short ramps, you would literally have to accelerate flat out, foot to the floor, to get up to freeway speed by the merge point. Add a headwind and/or an incline and it gets even more challenging.

Ontario has very generous on-ramps by comparison, probably designed so that big trucks have enough room/time to merge at the speed of traffic. As a result, I've never felt uncomfortable driving low-powered cars around here.

[cowmeat]

Interstate on-ramps in the southern states I passed through are quite short. They're expecially short considering the speed limit on the connecting freeway might be 70 MPH / 113 km/h.

I hear that! But you forgot to add "and the drivers are ayeholes and won't let you merge"

When I get on I-4, 275 or 75 in the Volt I bury it in sport mode as soon as I hit the on ramp so I'm usually going about 10 mph faster than the traffic by the time I need to merge. That way I don't depend on anybody to let me in, I make my own room cause like you said, you run out of real estate really quick down here!

In my Chevy C3500 truck I'm always pulling either my lawn trailer or my kayak trailer. For some reason people are a lot more forgiving when I'm merging onto the highway in the truck. I can't explain it, but they do tend to let me in a lot easier than they do in the Volt

[Fat Charlie]

Try Long Island sometime. I think on ramps are actually illegal there.

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Or regular ol' Ohio country highways where you have a literal right turn onto a 65-70 mph PSL road.

[slowmover]

Originally Posted by jcp123

Not bad! What speeds are you running? I have seen mid-30s in my wife’s van, when I drove from Harrisburg, PA to DC for July 4th several years ago, but I kept CC to the speed limit which was basically a ton of 55-60mph (~90-100kph), and the a/c humming.

As a trucker myself, I’ll tell you that the trailer tails were a thing about 5-10 years ago, but I am guessing it wasn’t worth the cost. My company dabbled in them. Of the maybe 10 trailers I’ve pulled with one, I could not tell the MPG difference, most were broken, and it can make backing up harder. All of our trailers, though, have skirts. The tractors have had these soft (but flimsy) wheel covers for a while, but the newest trucks like my 2020 Cascadia P4 have some nice full metal discs. They’re also exclusively getting automated manuals now, and after 43k miles, although I miss my find-em-or-grind-em 10-speed, it’s made the biggest mpg difference I have seen in the fleet, easily worth a full mpg, or 10-15%.

Savannah and nearby Charleston are charming places. A shame you didn’t have time to head out to Hilton Head Island. Really the whole coastal Carolinas are low-key great places. But do avoid Atlanta if for some reason you have to go that way instead. Oh, and if you happen to go up 95, stop by South Of The Border off of I95 near the South/North Carolina state line, the kitch factor alone is worth the stop and a leg stretch.

The trailer tails work well. But not for drivers who don’t open them, or stupidly fail to close them when parked or backing to a dock. I’d spec one on a trailer I owned. The advantage of a fully-boxed tail and skirts is obvious: big reduction in steering corrections per 100-miles.


The latest nose-splitter and coanda devices at the tail (sides and roof) more than offset the maintenance headache from dumb drivers. Wind-handling isn’t as good, but still far better than nothing.

Flow-Below is the necessary addition. Now also available for the trailers. An aero package around drive axles. Then, make sure you are ALWAYS loading the Steer Axle properly so that the kingpin puts the trailer nose at 30” separation.

Automated manuals AND all-axle disc braking mean more than just some aero. But aren’t it’s equal when latest “lowered life cost” aero is included.

The fleet highest van average is NUSSBAUM out of Illinois. 9-mpg. A full mpg ahead of us with similar work . . . but who the hell would want to drive a Freightliner?

.

[MetroMPG]

And I have another observation, tangentially related to efficiency:

I got the definite impression that people in the southern states don't signal as reliably as northerners. Anecdote, for sure.

Efficiency effect:

I saw multiple instances of people waiting to exit parking lots who might have made their exit if the approaching car had signalled their intention to turn into said same parking lot. Instead, you get a late-braking, no-signalling entrance, and the departing driver isn't sure what's going on until it's too late to take advantage of the opportunity.

[slowmover]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

And I have another observation, tangentially related to efficiency:

I got the definite impression that people in the southern states don't signal as reliably as northerners. Anecdote, for sure.

Efficiency effect:

I saw multiple instances of people waiting to exit parking lots who might have made their exit if the approaching car had signalled their intention to turn into said same parking lot. Instead, you get a late-braking, no-signalling entrance, and the departing driver isn't sure what's going on until it's too late to take advantage of the opportunity.

That’s because the proportion of invaders is higher. Any state where non-whites are a significant proportion of the population the fall in courtesy is drastic. The southern states are being overrun more rapidly.

Driving is too difficult for some. Thinking of others is more than they can manage once underway. Adherence to turn signal use is only to avoid citation.

Programmed.

Look for the patterns. Drivers are second.

.

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by slowmover

Thinking of others is more than they can manage...

There's a lot of that going around.

Which south is being overrun by non-whites? The southwest, which was already well populated when Whitey started a war and then overran it, or the southeast, here Whitey overran it and then imported non-whites by the boatload?

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

I got the definite impression that people in the southern states don't signal as reliably as northerners. Anecdote, for sure.

Take a trip to the Puget Sound region sometime. I grew up and learned to drive there; turn signal usage is, shall we say, not the norm. And it's one of the most white-bread parts of the country, which would seem to invalidate...

Originally Posted by slowmover

That’s because the proportion of invaders is higher. Any state where non-whites are a significant proportion of the population the fall in courtesy is drastic.

...the views of our now ex-resident racist. No sabes nada. Bye!