Proof That Driving 55 Saves Gas and Money
By jmara
Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 4:59 pm in General.
Richard Lew e-mailed us to tell us about his approach to saving gas and sent the kickin’ photo of his van in response to our recent story about driving 55:
Thanks for the article on driving 55mph to save fuel. I have a fairly large work van and I travel an average of 120 miles per day.
When I started pay $3.50 per gallon, I started slowing my speed down from 70 mph to 65 mph on cruise control to see how my mileage went.
It did improve some to around 25 mpg but when prices reached $4.00 per gallon, I took a risky move and decided to drive at 55 mph. My mileage averaged around 28 mpg so I continued to drive 55 mph to this day.
The only problem I have is people tailgating really close because they’re too dumb to go around me or they just keep following me while talking on their cell phones.
Either way, I had to put up a sign on the back of my van to let people know why I’m going so slow on the freeway. It’s been up for a month and still they speed around me or tailgate. I just have to learn to watch out for people behind me as well as in front of me.
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June 24th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
It amuses me that some people admit to speeding, and now say that they are reducing their driving speed in order to save gasoline. NO ONE SHOULD SPEED! Among the many cars I see speeding are a lot of hybrids, which, of course, defeats the purpose of paying a premium for such a car. Californianshave yet to suffer enough at the pump, as evidenced by their insistence on speeding. Perhaps at $5.75/gal they will slow down to speed limits.
June 24th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
You are SO RIGHT! I am driving 55 mph these days and it just kills me when I get passed by hybrids. For some reason they seem to be the most aggressive, though maybe that’s just my biased impression.
Do you think we’ll see $5.75 by the end of summer?
June 30th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Janis,
I LOVE your blog! Just discovered it and can’t wait to share with my husband, a hybrid owner/lover and worshipper of all things environmentally groovy!
What else you doing these days? And pls respond to my personal email addy. Thx!
Lori