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I put out a plug for Altwheels yesterday, and this morning I
got this back from a friend:
.
_ The problem is you're missing the other side of the hypermiling
_ rant.
_
_ On Saturday, I had the "privilege" of following you a ways on the
_ way to the [party], for about a mile. You were hypermiling.
_
_ You were also ****ing over traffic for at least a mile. Reason
_ being that when you hypermile, you eschew accelleration.
_ Especially at stoplights.
_
_ Which means that a timed green light that might admit a dozen cars
_ passes three or four. And everyone else sees exactly what's
_ holding up traffic.
_
_ Which, although it achieves *your* hypermiling goals, ****s over
_ mightily everyone behind you.
_
_ They did NOT sign up for your hypermiling stunts, they want to
_ be where they want to be, and they are willing to pay market
_ price to get there.
_
_ You need to let the market equalize the cost/benefit ratio, and
_ your hypermiling on public roads is a hazard to the rest of
_ the public. It's not your job; interfering with the Invisible
_ Hand only makes things worse.
_
_ Wrong message to send. WAY wrong.
_
_ Your hypermiling behavior is counterproductive in many
_ dimensions.
_
_ Please STOP IT. NOW.
.
Now, this is an intelligent guy and I respect him for a bunch of
correct thinking in other areas, and I think in this case he
misinterpreted a knot of congestion that I *happened* to also be
in but I'm trying to get clarification on exactly what the
circumstances were. But this is the same argument that Julian Edgar
over on prius_technical_stuff tried to raise a year or so ago,
i.e. hybrids *have* to "go fast" to have any credibility, and
while he was shot down on a number of counts the whole episode
was basically left as "you drive your way, I'll drive mine" with
no real resolution.
.
Still, it sucks that so many people are this focused on the
short-term gain and not on the larger issues facing everyone..
.
_H*

Hi Hobbit:

___There is a cost in terms of time but I think he went out of his way to prove his point. 3 cars through a light vs. 12? What kind of non-sense is that unless you have extremely short lights and if you do, I can imagine the light up ahead of that one is screwed and so on and so on? Sounds like grid lock :(

___If you have to get there at a given time, you will have to leave a bit earlier if you plan on increasing your FE. Holding up traffic on a 4 lane road is nonsense but on a two lane it could arise?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

I guess it isn't impossible, but I have a hard time believing that you truly held up a mile's worth of traffic. On a two lane back road, I have once or twice looked in my rear view mirror to see a line of several cars behind me, perhaps as many as five or six. It isn't slow acceleration that does that so much as the fact that I won't speed. For a PSL of 35mph I will do 35-37 whereas most want to do 40-45. There isn't much to be done about that, particularly if you care about any of the kids running around those neighborhoods.

The timed lights can be interesting. My experience is that you can get stuck in a red wave if you don't accelerate quickly off the first light. This is typical of a system that is timed to switch at precisely the speed limit and the PSL is where you top-out. If you hit one of these on a green and do exactly the PSL you will get through clean. Too fast and you will hit a red, too slow and you will get stuck somewhere down the line. If you do get stuck, you may continue to get stuck if you don't get right up to speed. But this has nothing to do with the people behind you, because 95% of them will get stuck anyway! Unless you want to do 10mph over the PSL, in which case you might get through and only 85% of them will get stuck. I have had plenty of experience with this, and there are times when the pack just hits it wrong and nobody wins no matter what. I have been at the front, back, and middle of said pack and suspect this is what actually happened in your case.

Sometimes I get razzed by my co-workers about my own efforts. I dismiss it as being my turn to be picked on, but there's always an underlying tone of resentment which I ignore.
Even though they chose the large vehicles to drive...and choose to drive them hard they hate the fact I'm saving alot of money and find excuses why they can't change their own driving habits.

May I take a guess and wonder if your friend is the speed demon impatient type?

I fine example of the human condition, from which we all suffer from. :)

Part of the resulting thread from all this mentioned that some
states have laws that if you're leading more than 4 or 5 cars,
you are *required* to pull over and let them pass. As I was
pointing out, I try to remain sensitive to traffic behind me and
find a way to safely get rid of them, or speed up a little to
accomodate their perceived "need", but if we're already all well
above the PSL then they really have very little cause to complain.
I've posted a longish rebuttal by now that emphasized a
distinction between "hypermiling" [as they were all calling it]
and "smooth driving". Only one of those terms would really imply
"slow", and is hopefully still done under controlled, surroundings-
sensitive conditions even if it's still on public roads. In fact
I've been driving mellow for years, just not optimized in a
way to try to increase FE until more recently.
.
_H*

That has to be the most offensively stated s**tload of patronizing bs I've read in a long time.

He and everyone else is free to "pay market price" and go around you. You are not controlling the speed of traffic in your town regardless of his delusions.

For such people why....

do they exhibt the anguished/frustrated look in the rear-view mirror when I've delayed their exit from the freeway for as little as TWO SECONDS?
I'll be on the freeway before rush hour with two lanes to my left, yet some pass to the right on the shoulder or the access lane with an attitude?If this is "reasoning" it's of the Pointy-Haired Boss variety in Dilbert - I'll do as I ****ing please and cop up a nice-sounding rationalization.

hm i'm tempted to show a piece of my personal forum that contains my friends talking about my driving habits. Although funny part is those who have riden with me have never complained about safety or comfort.

http://lunchlurkers.9.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=822 just the forum is early adulthood/teenage oriented and I update the thread when I have to pump in my gas (because when I post it makes a date, then I can count how many days it took me to fill up gas again... my current record was 24! almost 30 days!!! for a month) as well as 3 other databases (cleanmpg,gassavers,greenhybrid).

On those who have read it (last 10 posts, first posts are kinda unrelated to what this topic is about), please comment on my personal aspect of driving. Is it wrong for me to act in the manner I do now to achieve the 45 mpg + tanks I'm getting? Is 45 mpg really worth it for the people I'm potenially screwing over?

That has to be the most offensively stated s**tload of patronizing bs I've read in a long time.

He and everyone else is free to "pay market price" and go around you. You are not controlling the speed of traffic in your town regardless of his delusions.

WAYTOGO, girl. i totally agree. i was thinking about this one all the way to work, as i was driving 60 in a 65 zone on the 4 lane. we have just as much right to be out there as they do, and the posted limit is just that - a LIMIT, not a directive that everyone has to go that fast. everybody is in such a freakin hurry, and don't want to be bothered to have to click off their cruise control for one second, so just get the heck out of their way.

you would think we would get a little more respect. after all, we are saving gas so they can waste it a little longer........sheesh:mad:

Hobbit, tell your friend that it's poor driving and poor vehicle selection that makes the gas I buy so expensive. When he buys my fuel, he can tell me how to drive. Punk.

I'm on the freeway at 6am going 50 in a 60 zone. Plenty of opportunities for this F150 pickup to take the two lanes to the left of me, but decides to tailgate for about a mile. I did some ridge riding, and he refuses to take my hint. Finally we come across an access road. He uses it to pass, not exit. I do the bright lights and mutter what an #$@% he is. :mad: Pardon the dig, but I get pickups doing this to me all the tmie, and a guy on another forum gets ultra-defensive when I tell these stories (as if I'm racist or something :rolleyes: )

This could be an effort in futility to understand this behavior of tailgating, then passing to the right in a hostile manner. It could be simply not going as fast as he thinks I should go. It could be just the sight of an obviously hybrid vehicle like an Insight hisses rednecks off because it's "a girly car", I must be an environmental wacko, communist, etc.... Guys like this have some issues - serious.

The way it seems to me - it's absolutely taboo for someone to be on the highways getting 80mpg or even 40mpg. Guys like this feel like it's dignified to drive like the pickup just described and maybe get as much as 15mpg. In other words, his "dignity" or whatever demands he spend three to five times more gas on a commute, then treat me as the crazy one.

the sight of an obviously hybrid vehicle like an Insight hisses rednecks off because it's "a girly car",

That would make me a big "gurly mahn":confused:

:Banane36: :Banane36: :Banane36:

Randall

Hi Chuck:

___He was just drafting you ;)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/2/Truck_Drafting_Insight.jpg

___Please try and let this stuff go. It is not worth it to flash your brights and throw finger gestures after the offense. It might make you feel better but did it really make any difference? Just let it go if at all possible because there are too many crazy SOB’s out on the road nowadays.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

___Please try and let this stuff go. It is not worth it to flash your brights and throw finger gestures after the offense. It might make you feel better but did it really make any difference? Just let it go if at all possible because there are too many crazy SOB’s out on the road nowadays.


Personal experience tells me that it only feels worse to get angry and make with the finger gestures etc. BTDT, only created more self-sustaining anger with no viable way to vent it. Not to get personal, but I have a high enough hereditary risk of heart disease without that kind of crap! Life is short, focus on living. Drive ice cold :cool:

Yeah, it's too easy to work one's own self into a lather by just
thinking about it. As I mentioned elsewhere, the articles on
http://drdriving.org/ get pretty deep into this.
.
So last night I took the backroads to return from an errand just for
yucks, and found myself thinking "okay, so let's say that guy's
behind me here and he wants me to ACCELERATE!" but *EVERY* traffic
situation I hit was such that gentle acceleration, often under
my *usual* threshold, was called for just because other cars
weren't taking off fast, or someone had to turn, or the next
light went red, or whatever. In other words, no call to really
ram it even vaguely presented itself, that wouldn't have needed
a sudden slowdown fifty yards later.
.
It also turns out that on the particular train-station-pickup run
I was on at the time this friend happened to get behind me, I
was trying a different route into said train station and I was
somewhat lost trying to find a valid *entrance* to it. So no
wonder I might have been going a little slow -- anyone else would
have, too.
.
But the whole incident caused me to step back and try to gain
perspective, and made me tear in and try to reword that "free fuel"
handout I'm working on to be even less likely to be rejected out
of hand by the typical reader. In other words, his lighting into
me like that deflated any "smug" cloud I might have accumulated
and has affected my own thinking about the road, but try as I
might to see his point of view I still *cannot* find situations
that justify WFO acceleration, at least in the couple of days
after the whole flamewar. If I'm to keep doing my large-following-
distance thing and try to time lights/stops the right way, what
I've always been doing works out quite nicely, doesn't get in
anybody's way over the long haul, and likely doesn't need to
change.
.
I have offered to go out driving with this guy, both in his car
and mine and swapping off drivers, to rationally discuss what
each of us are doing or not doing and try to land on some sort
of compromise or understanding. He hasn't responded to that yet
and likely will not, I think he's having more fun just flaming me
in public.
.
_H*

Ran across a mildly amusing site this morning:
http://roadrage.com/
.
_H*

Ran across a mildly amusing site this morning:
http://roadrage.com/
.
_H*

Have to admit to being tempted to get one. :D