EOI: Not always a good choice (but at least my horn sounds nice)
 

Today, as I was EOI at a red light, I was the only car there. The light turned green sooner than expected and I failed to start the car. By the time I got started, a Nissan Titan is barreling at my rear end and squeezes past me on the right. Adrenaline kicks in about the same time as my engine and I have a brief moment of road rage as I tailgate dangerously, then I come to my senses and realize that I'm not accomplishing anything and back off. I then took a few minutes to really think about why I reacted so badly, and realized that while it was an unreasonable reaction, it was not unreasonable to be angry -- while true that my failure to start was dangerous, it wasn't half as dangerous as the narrow, high speed, wrong-side, unexpected pass he pulled. My failure to start could easily have been a reasonable stall and one should occasionally expect to see it on the road, while his pass could not be reasonable in any way.

Then, a few miles down a few roads (the crazies always go the same route as me), he turns into a driveway and of course has to make a nearly complete stop in the process, taking up the whole lane, and then I felt it was reasonable to honk. :p I did find out that my VW's horn, which I've never used, doesn't sound like a cheezy little "meep meep" that I expected, it sounds like a much bigger car with at least two deep notes.

The moral of the story: I will no longer EOI for most red lights. If I'm EOC as I approach, I'll bump start before it's too late and idle until it's green. The small amount that EOI saves is just not worth it in that situation.

I'm guessing that's why it's illegal here in my part of the country (British Columbia).

If the laws in Virginia were strictly enforced it would be illegal to drive a Prius.

regards
gary

It's probably illegal in most places.

How would you react if you were planning on maintaining speed through an intersection, only to encounter some guy completely stopped at a green light in front of you? It takes a lot of energy to get a 6,000lb truck back up to speed...maybe he was a hypermiler himself :)

In all honesty, I would have likely passed you on the shoulder as well, albeit at a much slower and more cautious pace. For how long do you estimate the light was green before you got the car started?

That is something that I thought of too. I wouldn't have wanted to stop behind some jerk who couldn't get his econobox moving, even if I wasn't hypermiling but especially to save gas. However, I would never have passed at high speed unexpectedly in the less-than-shoulder bit of pavement on the right. What he did was very dangerous. A safer pass would have been slower and on the left.

It all happened in probably less than two seconds. I'm pretty sure if I hadn't been there he was planning to run the light, considering how fast he was going as he got close to the still-red light.