spotting fellow hypermilers on the road
 

FE driving is so distinctive and unusual I figure that if there's another hypermiler on the same road, it'll be obvious. Anyone observed another person driving in a style that can't be anything other than hypermiling? I haven't. Sometimes a person yakking on the cellphone seems to act like a hypermiler the first few seconds you see them.

If a lot of people adopted hypermiling driving techniques, would that actually make it harder to drive right? I kind of depend on the jack rabbits to race up to red signal lights and trip them for me.

I think if people all drove more sensibly it would be easier to design traffic flow to increase FE...

This is something Japan is doing to meet Kyoto...

So far I haven't spotted any one *truly* hypermiling (unless you qualify the Aveo ,with its front bumper inches from a semi ,that passed me today . I'm guessing the pair were doing at least 80 mph - so by my definition = Nope)

just spot a gassavers sticker on their window... BAM!

LOL Yup that'd be a dead give away for shore !

Anyone going 55?

Couple of week ago when gas was $ .20 more then now there were lots of cars in the right hand lane of the freeway at 60. Now I'm lonely again and those that stay with me are few and far between.:(

Haven't noticed any on my drive. I did see a lime green insight with a 15 foot antenna on the roof... That thing was hauling though, sure wasn't trying to save any gas when I saw it. After thinking about it I did see a metro the other day, it was going 55-60 in the right lane, t'was an older gentleman. Might have been just cruising not wanting to go any faster for fear of his life though ;)

About the only time I find someone going the speed limit is if they are loaded down so far with something they are afraid of going any faster.

First, check to see if they're over ~80 years old, if not they're a hypermiler!
Well today, I could not see the person in the car in front of me, but they were going 50-55 mph on the highway which is slower that my usual 60 mph. So I followed them. it was pretty funny cause there was another car in there also, so it was us 3 doing 55 mph, and the rest of the highway was doing 70-75.

DIY aero is a dead giveaway!

m

If they be doing 65 like me, they're saving gas.

If they're going 80 in the fast lane, they ain't.

In March when I started going to the shack, almost everyone was blowing by me.

In April when the gas went up some, it was about every 1:10 vehicles.

In April it was 1:6 vehicles.

On Memorial day weekend, it as about 1:2. Almost nobody was driving by me along I-94, U.S. 127 and I-75. It's now a line of cars, SUVs and semis in a line. Now that gas has dropped .50 a gallon I wonder........

Apparently the point is getting across.

As an aside, someone who is camping (a local resident) at Michigan International Speedway this weekend called me, they told me the in-field is empty when normally it is full with beer swilling rednecks.

I figure one of two things: either people are getting tired of NASCARs rules or gas is too high to drive a camper cross-country at 70+mph.

Another story you haven't heard. Warren, Michigan is the safest city in the U.S.. Allstate gave away FREE gas this Wed. in Warren. The lines were 14 miles long with people that couldn't afford gas. Move, stop, shut off engine; repeat. 4,000 cars with drivers that can't afford gas and ride a bike or take the bus or don't work drove and waited in line. In one city.

That should tell you what we can do at this site.

Last summer when gas first went over 3 bucks a gallon (remember that? I think it was last summer), everyone was driving slow on the interstate. It was crazy, literally NOONE was going over 55 on the interstate. In my area gas hit 3.19 for regular at that time. I think that qualifies at hypermiling..

Even though we have new record highs, it never went over 3.19 this summer. Actually, right now I've heard its as low as 2.89 in one part of town..

I saw a metro driving I-10W from New Orleans once and he had a sticker that said "This car gets 47 mpg" I don't know if he was hypermiling, but he seemed to be going pretty slow.

Today, I was drafting (from a distance so not dangerous) a truck, on the highway, and very old VW camper (it was a model I've never seen before), in showroom condition, passed me. It then attached itself to another truck and stayed there, for many miles until that truck (which was a little bit faster than the one I was following) disappeared. So he was hypermiling, even if he didn't know it (although he wasn't doing DAEMON coasting like me).

In town today I drove down a dual carriageway alongside a Prius, and both of us had the engine off! But I also wasted a Porsche Boxster later on, which the Prius couldn't have done (I had to work hard to regain the lost fuel - I had my SuperMID on so I could see how well I was doing).

In the UK, with our high petrol prices, you do see more cars going slow (below the speed limit) on the motorway, although most people still drive fast. Of the cars that go slow, a significant minority tend to follow lorries.

I've heard that term before, lorrie. Any reason behind that name or something? :P

lorry - it is just the UK term for '18-wheeler' :)

Also, 'DAEMON' coasting is a term I made. I know that a D-FAS is a draft-assisted Forced Auto Stop, but I have started doiing 'Draft Assisted, Engine Mainly ON Coasting' - because I can then drive 400 miles, using a pulse and glide draft-assisted technique while not shutting my engine on and off all the time (I guess I do well over a dozen pulses per mile, so 4000 start/stop cycles might not be that good for the engine) :D

Got ya!

...crazy brits:D :p

"DAEMON"
Holy crap that is a lot of pulse and glide. I can do it for 10 miles at a stretch. There is a local stretch that I sometimes pulse and glide at 55-65. I use a 30 second cycle. One direction the pulse is 10 seconds and the glide 20 seconds. The other direction is 15 second pulse 15 second glide. This works out to two pulses per mile. I could do 4 p&g per mile but are you sure about that dozen :) ?

I have a slight uphill section I somes P&G and that takes a lot more cycles.

I see a silver newer honda sedan (accord or civic) on my way to work that drives slower than me :eek: (yeah, that's slow) . I haven't noticed any stickers or anything but I would guess they are driving for mileage. Hopefully not because they are almost blind or something :rolleyes: .

Huh ...today's siting: an Insight (dark blue ) and a Prius (champagne color )at @ 50-ish mph . Guessing at the speeds as they barely snuck by my 48 mph .

Wasn't there a thread on here that compared drunk driving to FE driving? The similarities were striking. :)

**EDIT**

Found it : https://www.gassavers.org/showthread.php?t=2149

Question is, do these drivers who are driving slow for mileage think of themselves as hypermilers? Not only that, are they dedicated enough to maintain these driving habits once gas prices level off at a [relatively] comfortable level?

Can one be a hypermiler just by changing driving habits? Or do you have to tweak your car to try and sqeeze more FE out of it? Can one be a hypermiler and not know it? Is there such thing as a rogue hypermiler? An indie?

I'm kind of in a "If a tree falls in the woods..." type of mood today.

m

how would you spot them? I've had people ride in the car with me, and if they aren't paying really close attention they don't alwas notice things like pushing the clutch in to coast, altho I have had a few people comment how I tend to take corners a bit fast, but controled, or how my starts are smooth, but from talking to people who get good mileage, it's just good driving, and most people notice only the bad drivers.