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Sweden now requires drivers to learn how to save fuel

From ABG:

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Sweden is one of the leaders (besides Brazil of course) in promoting the use of biofuels, particularly ethanol. The Scandinavian country's latest environmental effort involves trying to address the biggest variable of all, the driver. Since the start of this year, new drivers have been required to learn some techniques that help reduce fuel consumption and emissions.

Stockholm driving instructor Lars Rembjer teaches his students techniques like waiting until first gear has been engaged and the parking brake released before cranking up the engine. There are also the obvious things like driving in the highest practical gear and using the engine for braking. Finland and the Netherlands may soon follow Sweden in adding eco-driving to their licensing tests. The beauty of eco-driving is that it can be equally applied to any all vehicles no matter how old or what fuel it runs on. There is no additional cost and the payback is immediate.

Heh we require drivers do things such as learn to use turn signals. That doesn't really work out very well once the instructor or examiner isn't sitting next to them.

It's to bad that in the US they hardly even test drivers before sending them out on the road, I never took drivers ed, picked up a drivers handbook on my way out of the DMV office after they gave me my license, and when I talk to people who did take drivers ed, they only have a vague idea how to operate their vehicle, most don't know that you can engine brake, what over drive is, or most other things that I assumed everyone knew, so I would like to see some education of any kind of us drivers, and something more then a 10 minute test that involves driving on unused city streets.

And your loving friends at EM would be there to catch you.

Maybe it's just me but I fail to see the ecofriendliness of this Swedish biofuel boom. In fact it's IMHO very short sighted that Sweden subsidizes heavily the use of both ethanol and biodiesel made from palm oil used as fuel for traffic when both of these commodities are transported from the other side of the world where huge areas of tropical forest in South America and Asia are cut down to make room for new palm tree and sucar cane fields.

Don' get me wrong, I don't have anything agains biofuels if they are made from local sources but if their production means cutting down forests on another continent and sea transport of tens of thousands of miles it's another matter.

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Originally Posted by Ryland (Post 13916)

I never took drivers ed, picked up a drivers handbook on my way out of the DMV office after they gave me my license, and when I talk to people who did take drivers ed, they only have a vague idea how to operate their vehicle, most don't know that you can engine brake, what over drive is

Engine brake, huh? You can tell I went through the driver's ed program and it has failed me. I didn't have to study or know anything to pass and get my license. I choose to be more alert than my friends when driving but some of them shouldn't be driving.

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It's to bad that in the US they hardly even test drivers before sending them out on the road,

In IL, you have to take drivers ed. to get your license. You have to get 50 hours of recorded driving experience, including 10 at night, and 6 with the instructor. You have to have 33 hours of drivers ed. And you have to get less than 35 points on your test.

The problem I see is, you don't do any driving with the instructor before you get a permit to drive. They give you a permit, and tell you to drive. Some people have never driven before. it isn't until the month before you turn 16 that you drive with an instructor.

You don't have to do any of this once you turn 18. You can just take the test and if you pass, you get ur license.

They teach you how to drive, they tell you what to do in an emergency, but they don't tell you what the parts of the car does, except for cruise control. Some people don't even know what shocks do. One day I came in and said, "i.. think I blew a shock yesterday while muddin" And the girl I was talking to said in reply "what's a shock??"

Some poeple I think shouldn't be driving at all.