Drafting
 

Recent edition of Myth Busters

Excellent story on drafting.

It does work.

Its was predictable, since pushing the air is using energy, especially at + 50 mph.

Maybe not drafting a car, but a truck with a box.

Anyway I dont draft, I like to see in front of me when I drive, and the braking zone is just to dangerous, I simply slow and drive less.

Indeed, people are trying to find ways to travel more by using less. The problem might just be that they travel to much.

I draft, but never close enough to affect my ability to see what I need to see. A two to three second draft, which is the distance recommended by the state-prescribed drivers training program, has been found to be most effective in normal highway driving (see the drafting link in my sig).

On my trip back from Vermont I got behind a really low to the road box trailer pulled by a pickup truck and wow was that a great draft and I didn't have to get close to it either. It must have been at least 10 feet wide too. I really hated to pass it as I approached Boston.

ive done this lotta times to all sorts of things (always something that stops slower than me tho) charter busses are THE best, those racecar semi trailers (low to the ground) are also great, same wih moving semi trailers, reg semi trailers work good but not as well.

ive done the 10 feet draft before, not that scary... i figure whatever the semi hits is gonna get obliterated and it cant stop as fast as i can, it cant swerve easily.

sometimes the semi will randomly switch lanes but i just switch with it...once i guess the truck thought i was a cop cuz i got behind it started creepin up to its backend and he was at 60 for a while then slowly creeped down to 45...HAD to pass him before i got rearended.

last time i did this for 120 miles i got 42mpg in a s10. used close to 3 gallons so less than $10 to fill up. i prolly would have gotten higher but i had to get on another interstate and lost the charter bus... drove on the other interstate for about 40 minutes.

:( It's illegal and rude to tailgate.

yea well if they cant see me they dont know :P that and what damage could i possibly do to a semi....

Drafting is consensual between both parties. Tailgating is not. Many moons ago on a cross country trip to California, I used a CB radio to look for drafts with semis across the plains in my '78 Ford Fiesta. I found the best pull to be close, like 10 feet back, but off center enough to see around the truck.

My father used to tell me about people he knew who could drive up behind a truck and then turn off the engine and just be pulled along by the vacuum behind the truck...

When you have a Cd in the mid 0.1's, drafting has very little effect on mileage at normal highway speeds.

joebob, I've heard that to, but I don't think it's real... with out some down hill

Drafting works, it helps the mileage of both vehicles, but it's a stupid thing to do unless there is a lot of open road, few cars, and most importantly a CB. You are putting a lot of trust in the truck driver. If there is no communication it's just dumb

If you need a CB and lots of trust, you're way too close. Drafting for fuel economy is NOT like drafting for racing.

When you get too close to a big truck in a little car, there's lots of turbulence pushing the car sideways to and fro. There's also the difficulty of keeping such a short following distance; it requires lots of small bits of braking and accelerating.

i dunno when i did it i just matched the trucks cruise control so maybe once every 10 miles i would have to back off a tad (just tap the coast button on the CC then when i needed to speed back up just tap the resume button)

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I have had a lot of success drafting. My mileage usually increases by 10%-20% when drafting. The biggest problem for me is finding a vehicle to draft off of that is going the same speed I want to go.

I caught a drafter's dream yesterday. It was one of these:
https://lh5.ggpht.com/_oNsRR_T1Qx0/SC...0/IMG_0708.JPG

My trip average plummeted while I drafted because I couldn't P&G. So, for my VW, P&G > drafting. I bet it would have helped a lot in my GMC.

Hmm... I wonder how well that would work with my brick of a vehicle. I wonder, further, if that would work better with the bed cover on or off.

Bed covers improve MPG........so does leaving the tailgate closed if you don't have a lid.

I meant if the "vacuum bubble" would pull me along better with or without the lid. As in, I'm young and stupid enough that I might try it once (or....).