I'm a bit hyper myself given what has happened this morning, and I actually find it offensive that the agenda-pushing paper promotes, approves, and endorses something that is a dangerous safety hazard.
"driving without brakes.... the technique is risky because it takes more time to respond to an emergency requiring acceleration, and could cause a car to go out of control down a very steep hill.... drafting, hard cornering, and coasting in neutral. “Some of them are illegal. All of them are dangerous . . . not only to those drivers foolish enough to do these things, but also to the poor innocent person who has the misfortune to cross their path on the wrong day.’’
Yeah, I'll be staying out of Boston in all seasons.
"If they could coast all the way, they would; ‘Hypermilers’ nurse every last drop of gas" by Beth Teitell Globe Staff / October 1, 2011
They are the hypermilers - you know, those virtuous types who are obsessed with maximizing fuel economy. Many of their techniques involve no more than common sense and a Zen approach to the road. Hypermilers ask “What would a Boston driver do?’’ and then pretty much do the reverse.
Some are Prius drivers for whom the hybrid’s already admirable 51/48 miles-per-gallon fuel efficiency isn’t sufficient. Others want to get a bit more from their gas-hungry SUVs or pickups. The founder of a popular hypermiling competition, Eric Powers, said that the vigilant can beat the Environmental Protection Agency estimates by an impressive 50 percent, and the EPA reports that aggressive driving (namely the antithesis of hypermiling) can lower gas mileage by 33 percent on the highway.
Statistics on hypermilers are hard to come by, but signs of interest abound....
Where? Because the Globe decided to front-page it and go talk to these freaks?
With gas prices high and the economy low, and too much rage and distraction on the road, what’s not to like about hypermiling?
I think I covered that with the lead-in quote.
“It has actually reduced my cellphone usage,’’ Sarah Boisvert, 56, of Plymouth, said as she turned her 2005 Honda Accord hybrid, very slowly. There’s simply less time to be distracted by the phone when there’s a dashboard fuel-consumption display to focus on.
I want to know why she is not paying attention to the road.
Boisvert estimates that her techniques save hundreds of dollars a year on gas, and said one of her favorite tricks is coasting downhill and then eschewing the brake pedal as the car slows as long as it is legally, physically, and psychologically possible. Her goal is DWB, as they say in hypermiler forums, or driving without brakes. “But I won’t hit a pedestrian,’’ she said, very seriously.
Hypermiling started to break through to the mainstream in 2008, said Wayne Gerdes, the founder of CleanMPG.com. That’s when gas prices topped $4 a gallon, the New Oxford American Dictionary named it the word of the year, and a high-profile NASCAR driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., employed the “pulse and glide’’ hypermiling trick to stretch his fuel and coast to victory at the Michigan International Speedway.
How IRONIC that a NASCAR DRIVER -- can you think of anything more wasteful while these hazards to society are tooling around Boston? -- is the POSTER CHILD for this PREPOSTEROUS PROMOTION!
Related:
"NASCAR coverage was also expanded on the cable channel New England Sports Network, which is owned by New England Sports Ventures, the parent company of the Red Sox and Fenway Sports Group. The New York Times Co., which owns The Boston Globe, holds a 17 percent stake in New England Sports Ventures."
That EXPLAINS the Red Sox and other sports teams being featured on the FRONT PAGE!
And it also exposes the fraud behind the fart-misters.
Many converts want to save money or the earth - but not all are so noble.
So YES, the LYING PROPAGANDA does HAVE COSTS, folks! Not just a bunch of harmless earther-nutters looking to do good!
For a certain subset, hypermiling is just one more way to prove superiority, the vehicular version of killing the most pigs on Angry Birds, or amassing the most Twitter followers.
Oh, the ARROGANT ELITE S***S!
Watch: Smug Alert
Sometimes popular culture nails it!
“Some people play the stock market and win big,’’ said Alex Lu, a Haverhill transit analyst. “For me, this is it.’’
When he talks about winning big, he doesn’t mean financially. Lu, who drives a 2009 Toyota Corolla, but not very often, calculated his annual savings at a $59.50 per year - a bonanza that might be wiped out by the wear on his transmission caused by his favored method of hypermiling: cruising in neutral.
“People don’t recommend it,’’ he said, explaining that the technique is risky because it takes more time to respond to an emergency requiring acceleration, and could cause a car to go out of control down a very steep hill. “But the way I see it, whenever I hit the gas pedal or the brake pedal I see dollar signs.’’
Still, Lu has his limits. He won’t “hard corner,’’ or round corners without braking, or draft Tour de France style behind a truck on the highway, tactics that are not publicly condoned by the hypermiling community. Or the Massachusetts State Police.
Troopers “very strongly recommend against engaging in any of these driving tactics,’’ a spokesman for the State Police e-mailed about drafting, hard cornering, and coasting in neutral. “Some of them are illegal. All of them are dangerous . . . not only to those drivers foolish enough to do these things, but also to the poor innocent person who has the misfortune to cross their path on the wrong day.’’
But many hypermilers drive in a way that even a trooper would love.
Mike Wiecek, a local mystery writer, started hypermiling to give himself extra incentive to stop driving like a jerk, behavior he developed during long commutes to a former job. “I had become rude and aggressive and I didn’t like that about myself,’’ he said.
When being nice for niceness’ sake wasn’t enough to stop his vehicular aggression, he turned to hypermiling. Saving about $150 a year on gas, acting environmentally responsible - and, most crucially, the chance to feel superior to gas guzzlers - provided the needed motivation.
The new Wiecek coasts to a stop and accelerates slowly in his Honda Civic, a driving style that has the perverse effect of annoying fellow motorists. “They perceive my driving as being rude to them,’’ he said. “They’ll beep and pass in dangerous conditions.’’
But hypermilers don’t care what outsiders think. They’ve got bigger issues to chew over, such as whether a shorter route with a higher speed limit is preferable to a longer route with a lower speed limit; and when it makes sense to turn off the engine at a red light.
And they DID IT TO ME AGAIN, readers!!
