A "civil"car is a cheap investment in fuel economy.

don't be a hater...

Slurping my coffee, I hear the honk from behind demanding that I accelerate faster. God forbid there is a car length between my front bumper and the car ahead. I am sorry that my car is not advancing as fast as you think that it should. I lift my foot off of the brake and my car rolls forward, without acceleration, to advance the 5 feet of open road that have just become available. Go ahead! whip your car out in front of that other moving vehicle, floor your gas pedal and quickly jerk the steering wheel back into the lane in front of my car.

This phenomenon was new to me before I changed jobs about a year ago and began driving at peak traffic time on a highway that merges (or bleeds) into Georgia interstate 285. Before then, I had encountered such traffic occasionally, without warning, and let's face it; when reality does not meet expectation, tolerance can be scarce.

But on 285? At 8:00 a.m. -what did you expect? Unless you have a flying Jetson-mobile, you are not going to move faster than the lines of traffic that appear endlessly before you. Even if you tailgate the car in front of you and refuse to allow anyone who had the misfortune of not changing lanes as soon as you did to merge; you will not get to work faster. No, you gain nothing.... except control.

But at what cost?

Besides the damage to your cardiovascular system from stress and hate; you expend unnecessary gasoline with each push of the pedal. Assuming you drive aggressively throughout your commute, you may be spending as much as 30% more on your fuel than you have to.(see "Slowing down a little saves a lot")

Gaining 60 inches of road before your fellow commuter is like pushing the "close" button instead of holding the elevator for the person 2 seconds away. And how do you feel when that grateful person smiles and thanks you? Personally,I feel happy, just as I do when I allow cars to merge in front of me, knowing that I am relieving some of their stress as well as my own. Who knows? I may be preventing an accident ahead of me from that same desperate driver's failed attempt to wedge himself in front of an unwilling "merge snob".

All I am saying is face the reality. Embrace rush hour, anticipate it, benefit from it, don't worry, and be a HAPPY SPEEDER.

all rights reserved