Drive Slower, Driver Cheaper!

With gas prices reaching record highs and no end in sight, motorists everywhere are racing for ways to reduce their expenditures for gasoline.   But it turns out all that racing could be causing them to spend more than ever on gas.

Studies show that driving slow makes the most efficient use of the fuel burned in any vehicle.

A study done in 2005 by the auto enthusiast website Edmunds.com showed that speeding reduced fuel efficiency by 5 to 20%.  Most cars get the best mileage going between 45 and 55 miles per hour. As speed increases, fuel efficiency decreases. Some reports say that fuel economy drops by 1% for every mile per hour over 60 mph. That means, for instance, increasing from 55 mph to 65 mph is wasting fuel. Amping up to 75 mph is wasting a LOT of fuel.

Taking your lead foot off the gas pedal will save you money at the gas pump, but exactly how much depends on a lot of factors including the daily cost of gasoline, the fuel efficiency of your vehicle and how many miles you drive a year.

Our estimate is rough, but working from the Department of Transportation’s most recent figures on the subject, we could calculate that if gas is four dollars a gallon, a car getting 20 miles per gallon and driving 400 miles per week would save $18.74 a week—a mighty $974.48 a year-- by slowing down from 75 to 55 miles per hour.

The effect is well-enough known that in 1974, when the Arab oil embargo created gas shortages in the United States, then-president Richard Nixon ordered the national speed limit to be lowered to 55 miles per hour.

By the 1980’s, gas was again cheap and plentiful and motorists were impatient. The speed limit was raised to  65 miles per hour in some areas, particularly wide-open states like Montana a where rural drivers often had to cover long distances to get between towns. Then, in 1995, the 55 mph national speed limit was done away with entirely.

Today, you can check any freeway in America and find the average driver cruising along at 70 mph or better. But this time, we may not need a law to get drivers to let the pedal up off the metal. Movements like hypermiling and studies being done in pilot programs like one in Denver, Colorado, are showing drivers real-time evidence that driving slower pays off at the pumps.

With industry analysts saying that the days of cheap fossil fuel for gas-guzzling American cars are gone forever, cash-conscious U.S. drivers may soon be embracing the 55 mile per hour speed limit on their own volition.

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