Are driving habits changing with the increased petrol price?
Monday 14th July, 2008There was a time when I used to drive pretty much on the limit (often over as well). Then a while back, just as the prices started to sky-rocket, I heard an item on the radio about reducing consumption by slowing down.
I knew from previous experience that driving slower didn't have a sever impact on journey time, so I decided to give it a try.
The previous experience came from the time when I was contracting in Lytham St Annes for a couple of years at the start of the nineties. I drove up on Monday morning and back on Friday evening.
To get to Lytham for a normal start, I left home about 4:30 AM. At that time of the morning the roads were pretty deserted up to the Irwel viaduct on the M6 and I could drive at pretty much whatever speed I chose for much of the way. (No speed cameras in those days)
After a few weeks I noticed that my arrival time hardly varied, irrespective of how fast I had been driving, so I decided to run some experiments (got to do something to relieve the boredom). By deliberately driving at a chosen pace I was able to show that the difference in journey time varied by only 10 minutes (on a four hour journey) whether I drove at 60 MPH or 80 MPH. Analysis showed that average speed was largely determined by the occasional period of slow driving (e.g. around the M6/M61 junction) and not by the top speed.
Back to the issue of petrol consumption. In the nineties I didn't really monitor consumption, so I don't know what the effect was; but since I got my current car (SEAT Leon 1.6) in 2006 I have kept a pretty good log of petrol purchases, so I know that my running average up to mid April was 37 MPG. It was at this point that I implemented my own save petrol programme.
The change has been that I am now averaging 43 MPG: an increase of 16%. Since the beginning of the year, petrol has gone from 97.9 to 119.9 pence per gallon: an increase of 22%. Thus I have offset 73% of the petrol increase.
So, back to the question.
The reason I ask is that when I started my experiment, I was pretty much the slowest car on the road. In my car 3000 RPM in 5th is 64 MPH: i.e. just enough to overtake the lorries. At that speed I rarely overtook another car and never a van! I have noticed over the past week or so that this situation has changed. For example, yesterday we drove along the A14 to Desborough and overtook a lot of cars. Now admittedly it was a Sunday, but even so..
I knew from previous experience that driving slower didn't have a sever impact on journey time, so I decided to give it a try.
The previous experience came from the time when I was contracting in Lytham St Annes for a couple of years at the start of the nineties. I drove up on Monday morning and back on Friday evening.
To get to Lytham for a normal start, I left home about 4:30 AM. At that time of the morning the roads were pretty deserted up to the Irwel viaduct on the M6 and I could drive at pretty much whatever speed I chose for much of the way. (No speed cameras in those days)
After a few weeks I noticed that my arrival time hardly varied, irrespective of how fast I had been driving, so I decided to run some experiments (got to do something to relieve the boredom). By deliberately driving at a chosen pace I was able to show that the difference in journey time varied by only 10 minutes (on a four hour journey) whether I drove at 60 MPH or 80 MPH. Analysis showed that average speed was largely determined by the occasional period of slow driving (e.g. around the M6/M61 junction) and not by the top speed.
Back to the issue of petrol consumption. In the nineties I didn't really monitor consumption, so I don't know what the effect was; but since I got my current car (SEAT Leon 1.6) in 2006 I have kept a pretty good log of petrol purchases, so I know that my running average up to mid April was 37 MPG. It was at this point that I implemented my own save petrol programme.
- keep the revs below 3000 RPM in all gears and drive as smoothly as possible.
The change has been that I am now averaging 43 MPG: an increase of 16%. Since the beginning of the year, petrol has gone from 97.9 to 119.9 pence per gallon: an increase of 22%. Thus I have offset 73% of the petrol increase.
So, back to the question.
The reason I ask is that when I started my experiment, I was pretty much the slowest car on the road. In my car 3000 RPM in 5th is 64 MPH: i.e. just enough to overtake the lorries. At that speed I rarely overtook another car and never a van! I have noticed over the past week or so that this situation has changed. For example, yesterday we drove along the A14 to Desborough and overtook a lot of cars. Now admittedly it was a Sunday, but even so..
View Full Comments Inline [0]
Trackback URL=
<$DXTrackbackURL$>
