Even the most laid back drivers have experienced occasional road rage. It happens to the best of us.

A recent study from the travel site Expedia has pinpointed some road rage inducing behaviors. The report was released in conjunction with Memorial Day, one of the biggest driving travel days of the year.

“As the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day sees a huge spike in the number of drivers on the road,” said Expedia General Manager John Morrey. “The rule, as with airplanes and hotels, is that shared spaces demand decorum and attentiveness.”

The study, reported on CNBC, found that the biggest causes of road rage included when other drivers were texting while driving–69 percent of drivers admitted it caused undue anger. Another 60 percent of drivers had a real problem when other drivers tailgated them. Drivers also complained about multitaskers, those that hogged the left lane, and drivers who failed to signal before they suddenly changed lanes. The 2014 Road Rage Report surveyed 1,001 adult American drivers with a valid driver’s license.

Road raging is a big problem because people are more likely to incite conflict when they’re protected by the safe haven of their vehicle–they remain anonymous. While they likely wouldn’t get into a verbal argument at the grocery store, the freeway is a different story entirely. Overcrowding on the highways is also to blame.

“You know those studies of overcrowding in rats?” asks Barry Markell, PhD, a psychotherapist in Park Ridge, Ill., who has treated many perpetrators and victims of road rage, reported on WebMD. “Well, rats are usually OK until there is one rat too many in an enclosed space and then they all turn on each other. There are far more people on the road than ever before. Crowding causes aggression.”

If you’re vulnerable to losing your temper on the road, take steps to avoid road rage.

• Get enough sleep.
• Leave with enough time to get to your destination without driving aggressively.
• Play soothing music.
• Breathe deeply.

Remember, this behavior can cost you in more ways than one. “People don’t think about that,” Markell says. “This can have a high price tag even if no one is hurt or killed — tickets, lawyers, court costs, damage to vehicles, insurance rates.”

Related on EcoSalon

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We’re Mean Girls Sometimes

Image: kris krug

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An exclusive EcoSalon playlist to keep your patience on the streets. 

Because no one likes an angry driver.

Road Age by BehindTheWalk-In

Catch this and all of our playlists on 8tracks.

10 Songs to Walk You Back From the Precipice of Total Road Rage from EcoSalon on 8tracks.

Family Portrait – Interlude I // Never Should’ve Been There from Behind the Walk-in on Vimeo.

1. Interlude – Never Should’ve Been There – Family Portrait

2.It’s Real – Real Estate

3. Car – Built to Spill

4. Spit On A Stranger – Pavement

5. Happy Place – The Jesus and Mary Chain

6. Slide – Luna

7. Invisibility: Nonexistent – Kurt Vile

8. As We Go Up, We Go Down – Guided By Voices

9. Long, Long, Long – The Beatles

10. I Feel Like Going Home (alternate version) – Yo La Tengo

Like what you hear? Check out our entire 10 Songs series. 

Image: Kyknoord

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Tips for saving money on gas.

Gas prices are going up, again, and they might not be going down anytime soon. In the short term it’s painful, but in the long term, it may well be a useful reality check. High prices serve as a good motivator for all of us to be mindful of fuel conservation and reduce our own carbon emissions, saving money while we’re at it. Here are 11 ways you can conserve gas on the road, at home, and while you play.

Beware of public transportation. If you have a good public transportation system, by all means, use it. However, the good news is – more people will be using it. The bad news is – more people will be using it. State and federal budgets have been taking a beating, so that means that public transportation systems have had their share of cuts. The American Public Transportation Association has warned Congress that transportation systems could be overloaded if gas prices continue to rise. More funds for public transportation systems are more important now than ever, so start writing your politicians. In the interim, carpooling is another good option, and it goes without saying, drive a car with the best gas mileage that suits your budget and your needs.

Make friends with a mechanic. For those who do not have a public transportation system, no good bike path system, and have to drive – the first step is to make sure your car is in good condition. Correct tire pressure, clean air filters, wheel alignment and good general car maintenance will optimize your gas mileage.

Lose some weight. Get rid of any excess items you are carrying around in your vehicle. Extra weight makes your car work harder and use more gas. Also lose the sports racks, luggage boxes, and any other accessory that creates drag on your car when you aren’t using them.

Learn to (eco)drive. Back to driver’s education class, everyone. Give up your jackrabbit starts, quick braking, variable speeds, and just plain speeding. Embrace the posted speed limit, use cruise control whenever possible, and choose routes that have fewer stops and starts even if they are a little longer distance.

Wear deodorant. Lots of it. Summer is coming, and with it hot temperatures. While late model cars are pretty efficient, running your air conditioning can consume up to 20% more gas, so use the 4-40 rule. When driving under 40 m.p.h, roll down your (four) windows and feel the breeze. Driving over 40 m.p.h. increases the drag on your car (negating any benefit from not using your air conditioning), so roll the windows up and use your air conditioning sparingly. If you really want to avoid any impact on your fuel efficiency, drive with the windows up, the air conditioning off, and use your air vents.

Hone your time management skills. Condense all your errands into one trip on one day, instead of going out multiple days. Also, buy your gas in the early mornings or evenings when it’s cooler. Cooler gas is denser, so you get more for your money (the pump only measures volume).

Cut off ties to activities more than 10 miles away. Find things to do nearby instead. Ones that you can walk or bike to are even better. Learn to love your neighborhood and your town.

Vote for your town to build more bike paths. As much as we need better and extended public transportation, a plan to build more bike paths is a good idea in the long-term, too. Biking or walking is healthier and does more to alleviate carbon emissions than even taking public transportation. Currently, in many places, biking is simply too dangerous to be a good method of transportation. Wider road shoulders and sidewalks, paved bike trails and a refresher course of road rules regarding right-of-way for bicyclists, pedestrians, and drivers are all good ideas.

Let your grass grow. Buck the neighborhood association rules and consider some natural landscaping. If you must have a manicured lawn, take stock of your power tool inventory. Before you get out your power mower, leaf blower, edger, and other gas-driven yard implements, consider replacing them with manual tools. Buy a push mower and use hand clippers, a rake, and a manual edger and you can get a workout, have a beautiful yard, save on gas and lower emissions.

Don’t go into the office. If your work permits it and your boss can be persuaded, work from home when you can.

Rethink your recreation. Gas-powered boats, jet-skis, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, dirt bikes, and recreational vehicles are all popular forms of entertainment, but it might be time to change how we spend our free time and look for non-gas-powered alternatives. Some of those weekend activities could become prohibitively expensive this summer.

image: Don Hankins

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I used to make fun of people who drove Hummers. I would see those suburban road warriors taking up a lane and a half on the highway and I would say something rude and cutting about insecure twits who needed an off-road monster car to protect them from fender benders in a Whole Foods’ parking lot. I would speculate as to what type of “inadequacies” a man might be compensating for by wanting to drive a really big car. Oh, I was tough. Brutal even.

I wasn’t crazy about Suburbans or Escalades either, but I reserved a singular fury for the behemoth Hummers, unique even among big SUVs for their overkill and gas guzzling. Three times as big as a typical sport utility vehicle, with a frightening lack of emissions efficiency, these cars struck me as iconic symbols of waste, excess, and arrogant disregard for the atmosphere. But not anymore. Oh, how things have changed.

As I write this, Hummer has gone out of business, a victim of its own hubris and rising gas prices. In related news, sort of, my daughter has been driving for just under a year and my heart constricts every single time she pulls out of our driveway. There are a number of factors that worry me, but of particular concern are icy winter roads, other (stupid) drivers, and the gravitational pull of her cell phone. I am afraid that she will miss something in the blind spot, that treacherous dead zone where danger lurks, just out of sight.

It seems insane to me that a girl so young, so slight, so lacking in life and vehicular experience, should be allowed to hurl herself down weather impaired roads, with nothing between her and other cars but a dainty and insubstantial Honda Civic. I would like her in something bigger and stronger, something heavy and completely unyielding. I want her in a four wheel fortress.

Like any responsible parent, I have logged hours with my daughter in the car. We have practiced merging and lane changes, we’ve gone uphill and downhill in all kinds of weather, in daylight and dark. I have warned her till I’m hoarse and yet I still wonder: will she look away from the road to answer a text? Put on lip gloss? Will she lose control of her car while turning on an Ingrid Michaelson CD? This is a child who has mastered AP Calculus, but I’m not sure she’ll remember that oncoming traffic has the right-of -way when she’s making a left turn. She is a smart girl but she’s still a teenager, not too far removed from wearing braces and reading books about vampire love triangles.

If I can’t always be sitting next to her when she drives, then I want the car to step in and protect her for me. I want her car to be imposing. Scary. I want it to bully other cars on the road, show them who’s boss. And the fact is, emissions or not, if Hummer hadn’t gone out of business I would genuinely love to put her in one. It comforts me to imagine her in something big and tank-like, wearing a helmet, encased in bubble wrap and packed in with Styrofoam peanuts (still more environmental no-nos.) This makes me a hypocrite, I know, but from where I stand – at the intersection of mother love and civic responsibility – I would choose my daughter’s safety without a second thought. Yes, I want her to inherit a cleaner planet, but first I want her to emerge unscathed from her first years behind the wheel.

And the eco rage I once felt for the road-hogging cretins I used to berate? It’s still there, but it’s tucked away, hidden someplace where I don’t have to see it or deal with it. It’s in my blind spot.

Editor’s Note: Susan Goldberg is a slightly lapsed treehugger. Although known to overuse paper products, she has the best of intentions – and a really small SUV. Catch her column, The Goldberg Variations, each week here at EcoSalon.

Images: TheFriendlyFiend, fujisan3 (Mr.mt)

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If the already perfect storm of baffling high-tech driving distractions weren’t enough, GM’s OnStar adds Facebook to your mix of thought options to consider while changing lanes.

Though still in an experimental stage, the “hands-free” (safety first, right?) social media access system could be available to some subscribers as early as the end of the month. (OnStar subscriptions start at $199 a year.) Using it, a driver could update his or her Facebook status simply by speaking out loud (i.e., Scott Adelson is driving). Users will also be able to listen to Facebook newsfeeds and messages read to them in a friendly, let’s say sultry, OnStar voice: Hello Scott”¦ Bambi wants to be your friend. (Ahem. I digress”¦)

But wait, there’s more! The Bluetooth-based system will also read text messages and let a driver reply using one of four pre-set replies with a simple touch of a steering-wheel button. I’m not sure if you’ll be able to create your own reply. Maybe something like “Crashing my car, not LMAO!”

GM (OnStar) has been engaged in a losing battle with Big Three rival Ford Motor Co. (Sync), for the hearts and mind of the younger tech-savvy set. According to the The Detroit News, GM has recently announced a partnership with Google to link smart phones to OnStar so subscribers can search for directions by voice and download maps. The company has also introduced a new “OnStar mobile app” that allows drivers to remotely unlock doors, start the ignition, check tire pressure and fuel economy, and more.

Meanwhile, Ford’s Sync system is moving ahead with its own plans, says the Detroit Free Press. The next generation of Sync, will also allow users to read and reply to text messages. And while Sync won’t hook up with Facebook, later this year it’ll start to plug into Twitter, Pandora and Stitcher.

Ironically, to me at least, OnStar was originally developed for safety. And though it doesn’t take a Ph.D. in Psychology to figure out that this stuff will cause problems behind the wheel, I’m going to quote one anyway. Driver distraction expert David Strayer, Ph.D., writing for Car Talk: “…these systems neglect the cognitive sources of distraction. Over a decade of research has documented that interacting with systems like this can divert attention from driving and result in substantial impairments. Simply put, you cannot pay attention to two different things at the same time.  If you are updating the status of your Facebook account, you are not paying attention to the road.” He adds, “The driver next to you may be updating their Facebook account and their reactions will be about as bad as if they were drunk.”

Nice, huh? Well, so much for technology making our world a safer place. Can’t wait to see this update: “Facebook Username; Just hit a tree.”

Image: Open Box

The post “Update Facebook Status”: Use Your Blinker, Genius! appeared first on EcoSalon.

Did you know that regardless of the vehicle you drive, there are ways to drive more efficiently that can yield big savings over the course of a year? This means savings not only in your pocket from the gas spared, but savings on the resources of the planet and less pollution in the place we all live.

As you can see from the graph below, vehicle miles driven have steadily increased over the years. With that growth comes an increasing impact of our driving habits on our planet, which makes now a better time than ever to practice driving more efficiently.

In fact, driving efficiently has even spawned its own sport, called “hypermiling.” With the payout in hypermiling techniques including less consumption and less pollution, it is no wonder that the term was selected in 2008 as the best new word of the year by New Oxford American Dictionary.

While we are not advocating that everyone become a MPG sport competitor, there are things that we all can do to save fuel. We’ve rounded up some of our favorite ways that everyone can test drive to drive greener.

Controlled Accelerations

By accelerating slowly and steadily to our cruising speed, we let the vehicle work more efficiently at becoming an object in motion from an object at rest. If we gun the gas and try to get to speed quickly, then we stand the greater chance of needing to slow down again, losing all of that momentum.

Empty Out The Trunk

An extra 100 pounds in the trunk will reduce your fuel economy by 1 to 2 percent in the typical vehicle. Edmunds

So you’re still carrying around that camping gear from last summer in the trunk, and the golf clubs have taken up permanent residence in the back seat? For each and every extra pound you carry, you pay the price to accelerate it and slow it back down each time you drive. By cutting down on the extra unneeded junk in the trunk, we save all that energy required to drive it around town.

Turn Off The Air Conditioning

It has been suggested that air conditioning in a vehicle can increase fuel consumption by up to 10 percent. This is an easy way to save fuel. And just imagine if you suddenly had 10 percent of all the money you spent in gasoline last year in your hand?

Keep the Vehicle Maintained

It is important that a vehicle gets serviced at regular intervals. Dirty oil is not only bad for your vehicle, but it requires more energy to work an engine through sludge. Also, maintenance can save you from having large repair bills down the road. Not to mention that a non-serviced vehicle may leave you stranded on that road when it suddenly fails. Vehicle maintenance saves money, saves the environment, and could save you from being stuck in the middle of nowheres-ville.

Lose the Clown Shoes

Driving footwear must have a sole thin enough to feel the amount of pedal pressure needed to meet the necessary braking and accelerating. One of the most important tools you have in driving greener is making the connection between your foot and the response of the car. A big shoe with a few inches of padding removes the sensitivity of the foot, making that connection harder to make. Is it any wonder that race car drivers like wearing extremely thin-soled shoes?

Keep the Vehicle Streamlined

A vehicle that moves through the air more efficiently takes less energy to push, and this translates to less fuel consumption. One good way to do this is to keep the windows rolled up. Open windows create drag, and drag cuts fuel economy. The same can be said of sunroofs at highway speeds.

Another way to keep the vehicle streamlined is to remove those roof and bike racks when not in use. Such racks interrupt the flow of air, creating drag. Another thing to consider is that the racks add weight to the vehicle, again costing more in energy to move the vehicle.

Finally, if your vehicle tends to look like it has won the mud bog championships, then give it a bath. An irregular surface from caked mud and dirt can create drag as well. Plus, you will actually know what color the vehicle is instead of just guessing.

Slow down

In a typical family sedan, every 10 miles per hour you drive over 60 is like the price of gasoline going up about 54 cents a gallon. CNN Money

The faster your vehicle moves through the air, the greater drag it creates in the surrounding air. By slowing down, the vehicle encounters less resistance and uses less energy for the same amount of work. A reduction of 20-mph in your regular highway speed can yield measurable savings in a short time.

Coasting To a Stop

When you see a red light or stop sign coming up, then let of the gas and coast to the stop instead of remaining accelerated and hitting the brakes when you get there. By doing so you not only save gas, but your brakes get less of a workout. You save money in both gas and brake replacement, and the planet saves on valuable resources.

Know when to use Cruise Control

Cruise control can be a valuable tool on the highway to maintain a steady speed (and to save from speeding), but it lacks the tools that you have in your head. That is, cruise control does not see the hill looming up ahead. Instead it will coast until you are halfway up the hill and slowing down, then it nails the throttle, demanding that the vehicle speed increases.

By anticipating the hills and valleys you can drive more efficiently by slightly increasing the vehicle speed as required to climb the hill without a major loss of momentum. In areas where the roads tend to be up and down or crowded it makes more sense to turn off the cruise control and drive smarter.

And as you are driving smarter, keep looking ahead to anticipate events that require changes to your vehicle momentum. You might anticipate the need to decelerate in order to coast to a needed stop, and it makes for a safer driving experience.

Choose the Best route

It is interesting to note that the most efficient route to take in your driving may not be the shortest. Basically you want as smooth a trip as possible while being relatively short, and you want to avoid as much stop and go scenarios as you can.

If you are doing multiple chores, then consider driving the longest leg first. This lets a warm vehicle be used for the bulk of the stopping and restarting, which is more efficient at it than a cold one.

Turn It Off

If you are stopped on the road for an extended period of time – such as a train passing, road construction, or an accident – then consider turning the vehicle off after 20 seconds or more. This saves the idle time fuel as well as potentially saves you vehicle from overheating. Plus it stops the emissions from the idling vehicle, which is always nicer for our planet.

Avoid the Drive Thru

A fast food drive thru requires you to waste fuel as you wait in line for the pickup. But parking the vehicle and walking in you save that fuel. Plus, the trip in to eat might be safer than the alternative, even if you were only sneaking a few fries from the bag.

Check Your Air Pressure

Properly inflated tires can reduce fuel consumption by up to 3 percent WikiHow

This a commonly known item to check, but it gets overlooked. A low tire creates more drag on the pavement, and consequently reduces your miles per gallon. By keeping your tires properly inflated your vehicle literally rolls more efficiently. Please do bear in mind that excessive air pressure in tires is dangerous and should be avoided as well.

Make Driving Count

One of the best ways to drive greener is to, simply put, not drive. By combining chores to a single trip it can save greatly on the fuel requirements as well as saving your valuable time. Plus it is less wear and tear on the vehicle itself, and it makes the roads less crowded for everyone. It’s a win-win for everybody.

Make It a Game

Make saving gas a game. Track fuel used or miles driven this week, and see if you can beat it next week. Set goals for yourself along with rewards. You can even involve your friends and have a weekly or monthly Green Driver award. Nobody said that being a smarter driver had to be boring.

By following a few of these tips along with others, you may find you can have both a direct savings for yourself and a healthier planet for everyone. It’s not often where saving money helps in the long run, but that is the great thing about conservation.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by D. Salmons from TestFreaks – a site where you can find gizmos and gadgets like GPS devices.

Image: anee.baba

The post 15 Ways to Drive Greener appeared first on EcoSalon.

E-readers are spineless compared with hardcover books, lacking the soulful carbon fingerprints of readers past. You cannot fold the pages of the wafer-thin gadgets, or make your mark with splotches of food or wine. And the idea of clutching the casing to your chest after reading the final line of a novel just leaves me cold. As one book club friend of mine waxes, “There’s just something about the smell of a book.”

Still, we all can smell and see the writing is on the screen when it comes to these devices outsourcing print media, sparing trees and saving money. According to ID TechEx, the total market size in 2010 is a whopping $131 million, and is expected to soar to $1.7 billion by 2014. Much of that growth is attributed to huge success of Kindles and other portable e-readers. “In 2020, the market value will reach $7.45 billion thanks to the availability of flexible, color displays and faster refresh rates,” the market analysts predict.

Why do users find them so friendly?

“I bought one for my wife for her birthday and enlarged the fonts so she can read the words on the screen without squinting or wearing reading glasses,” says Steve Montoya, a Bay Area IT consultant. “She’s an avid reader. Recently, she read a series she couldn’t get in e-print, and couldn’t wait to finish it and get back to her Kindle.”

While you can’t download all desirable titles now, the Amazon library and others are growing every day.

“You can get books, magazines, newspapers, even audio books to listen to with headphones,” Montoya says.

The graphite feature also is a huge power saver, he finds, noting you can get several days of reading on one charge. And since it works on a cellular network, it also makes it easy to instantaneously order books and have them appear on your library. Plus, the e-readers never seem to lose connection.

“My brother-in-law is in Afghanistan and his iPhone doesn’t work, but his Kindle does,” says Montoya.

If the prequel of our paperless future is the tragic death of magazines and newspapers, will the sequel be the disappearance of paperback and hardcover reads? Are there upsides to this plot? Here are some of the pros and cons of e-reading devices:

Cost

Pro: If you are a voracious reader without a library card, you probably will save money on an e-reader. If you are a voracious reader with a library card, you probably will save on late fees.

Con: You have to spend a lot for the cheapest iPad, which is wifi-only, holds 16GB of storage and sells for nearly $500. The Que is $649 and has a 4GB of data storage. The 3G wireless Amazon Kindle is more affordable at $250.

Storage

Pro: When the Kindle was introduced in 2007, travelers loved the benefits of of storing up to 1,500 books on a device the size of a small paperback read. And the library of available books to download keeps expanding (the first chapter of any book is free). Let’s face it, we are a storage-challenged human race with too much junk and not enough apartment and home space. This eliminates the need for shelving.

Con: Our private libraries are important for sharing with our friends and children and passing down treasured collections – classics and complementary fiction that rocked our world. Plus, it’s a lot easier to lose a gadget than an entire dusty collection.

Green

Pro: Many green publications, including Inhabitat, sing the praises of e-readers because they ultimately aid the environment by requiring no deforestation to manufacture, compared to the traditional paper publishing industry. This doesn’t even include the energy, materials, dyes and carbon from shipping that shames the print industry. According to a study by Cleantech, the carbon emitted in the lifecycle of  a Kindle, for example, is fully offset after the first year. And more earth-friendly models are on the move, like LG’s Solar ebook introduced last year, boasting a thin photovoltaic cell which keeps the juice pumping so your novel won’t go kaput during the climax.

Con: What is being offered is a new thing to buy, to keep you busy on the subway. High tech by nature is incompatible with green with exceptions such as solar panels, which also require an investment in energy to make. Green means a return to what your grandparents did, a return to simplicity: Walk a few blocks to school and work. Open a book on your front porch and snooze. That’s 18th Century technology. Also, the effectiveness of reducing emissions by popularizing these gadgets is dependent upon the publishing industry standardizing its adoption of the technology while committing to cutting down the production of physical books and other print media. Is this likely to happen anytime soon, other than by default?

Convenience

Pro: Toss the paper thin, lightweight, wireless device in your bag and you’re good to go. The new generation of Kindles is lighter than a paperback at 6″ and 10.2 oz. and you can hold it with one hand, which aids those carpal tunnel issues. This is why so many e-readers are the new companions of commuters. Hopefully, driving laws will keep users from biting into New Moon while behind the wheel. If you thought texting was was a dangerous distraction while driving…

Con: The tactile experience of gripping a book, magazine or Sunday paper can outweigh the fact it might be heavier to lug. It is this experience that is woven into our cultural wiring. No matter how hard technology tries, the tendency for consumers to prefer print over e-readers will endure for many years to come. With regard to our cultural connection to books, a graduate student at the University of Toronto wrote that his first experiences with a reader felt like “a courageous betrayal of every word written from the moment papyrus gave way to paper.”

Connection

Pro: We are a society that needs to stay connected now more than ever. In terms of signal range, e-readers never seem to drop out.

Con: Losing connection might be easier on the eyes. Having your head in a book just isn’t the same as having your peepers fixed on a screen for hours of pleasure reading. Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) cases are rising in people looking for relief from fatigue, strain and irritation caused by focusing on worlds and images on a surface without well-defined edges contrasted against backgrounds. Eyes simply respond better to most printed text of bold black letters on a bright, white background.

Images: E-readers

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I live in Los Angeles and yes, I love my car. Not because it’s a symbol of my status or a prized possession, but because I’d get nowhere without it.

In a city known for traffic jams and empty carpool lanes, you’d think locals would be begging for ways to avoid our cars. Such is not the case.

In fact, we finally have our Metro but it’s a sad fact that not many people ride it”¦or know where to catch it, for that matter. It will take something bigger, something cooler to convince this LALA to leave her CarCar at home.

Is it possible that this bigger and cooler something is simply better design? Could a cool concept do what a plea for better air quality could not?

Michael Lejeune and his creative team definitely think so. Their campaign for the newly expanded Gold Line (running between Pasadena, downtown and East L.A.) began this summer and they’re hoping it will cause a stir.

“Our goal is to make Metro cool. To compete in one of the most media-saturated cities in the country, we’re trying to inject a sense of fun and personality”¦” says Lejeune.

Colorful, graphic t-shirts and “typographically beautiful” weekly passes printed with a different green tip on each are just the tip of Lejeuhe’s iceberg of design ideas. The online Metro Store sells mugs, model buses and even a tie with tiny metro icons.

All this in the name of public transportation? If it will convert the car-addicted to go cold turkey, then I say more please. Because I’m tired of traffic and exhausted by rising gas prices.

What do you think? Can good design have this much influence?

via Fast Company

image via StepInsideDesign

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Are fuel costs stressing you out? Can’t spring for a new fuel-sipping ride? When you seek to improve the fuel-efficiency of a vehicle, the journey must start inside your own head. When you learn to control emotions on the road, you reduce the impulse to stomp on the pedals. Eliminate those aggressive tendencies and you’ll experience a significant improvement in your vehicle’s mile per gallon (MPG) average.

Of course, while that mantra might sound swell and dandy, does it really work when you’re stuck in traffic twice a day, five days a week? It all depends on the strategies you employ.

Some things to consider:

Telecommute

Driving to work every day can be burdensome and wasteful (on many levels). Any opportunity you have to work from home is an opportunity to dramatically reduce your fuel costs and lower your stress level.

Use Flex Time

Leaving fifteen minutes earlier or later can have a significant impact on your commuting time and fuel consumption. Avoiding the worst of stop and go traffic during the morning and afternoon rush hours can boost your car’s average gas mileage.

Don’t Be In a Hurry

When all works as planned, those 15 minutes of slack in your schedule can prove to be quite relaxing. If you’re not in a hurry, you’ll go easier on the pedals.

Be Conscious and Conscientious

Know where your right foot is at all times. Seek to minimize the duration and intensity of the pressure you put on the accelerator. The more pressure you exert, the more fuel you’re wasting.

It Isn’t a Race

You don’t have to pass three cars on your way to the next traffic light. Let the other folks pretend that they’re driving in the Daytona 500.

Know Your Lanes

Be a good citizen on the highway. If you want to fly, the left lane is for you. If you’re traveling at the speed limit (or below), the right lane is where you should be…just be sure to make room for the folks that are merging. If it’s a three-lane highway, the center lane is for folks traveling through, at or above the speed limit, but below warp speed. A little courtesy goes a long way.

Stop Riding Those Bumpers

Unless you enjoy the exhaust smell of the vehicle in front of you, there’s no reason to crawl up its rear bumper (and raise everyone’s blood pressure). When you leave plenty of distance between cars, you reduce the need to stomp on the brakes, which leads us to…

Inertia is Your Friend

It’s been said that fuel-efficient driving is a lot like riding a bicycle. The more you can coast (with the automatic transmission in gear), the better. When you exert pressure on the pedals, you’re expending energy. The better you know your car, the more velocity you can safely carry through the corners.

Fuel-efficient driving needn’t be boring, nor should it infuriate your passengers or other drivers. Like so many things in life, some simple breathing techniques and a good bit of patience go a long way.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Daniel Gray, who produces real-world video car reviews with a unique focus on fuel efficiency. His fun and friendly reviews can be found at mpgomatic.com. Thanks for the great tips, Daniel!

Image: celerrimus

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How often do you have to stop and fill up your tank? Frequent trips to the gas station may be a sign that you’re not maximizing your car’s fuel efficiency. As it turns out, trading your ride in for a hybrid isn’t the only way to improve your gas mileage. Here are some simple pointers to get started.

Lighten your load. Take out your golf clubs, toolbox and other heavy items when you don’t need them. Any extra weight reduces your car’s fuel efficiency.
Use cruise control as much as possible because driving at a constant speed increases your gas mileage. Plus, it sure makes that daily commute a little more bearable.
Switch into overdrive to decrease the engine’s speed and save gas.
Keep the idling to a minimum. Instead, turn off the engine while you’re waiting for your pals to pick up something from the store or finish getting ready.
Gradually accelerate to waste less gas.
Maintain your tire pressure to ensure that your tires are always properly inflated. In addition to better gas mileage, it will help your tires last longer.

Use the grade of motor oil recommended by your car’s manufacturer, whether it be 5W-30, 5W-20 or 10W-30.

Give your engine a tune up on a regular basis.
Only turn on the air conditioning when you’re dripping sweat and threatened by heat stroke. Okay, maybe that’s a bit extreme, but you get the idea. Use it sparingly.
Take off bike or luggage racks when you aren’t using them. They interfere with the aerodynamics of your vehicle and cause drag, which causes your car to expend more energy than necessary.

For more tips, visit Fuel Economy.

Image: Hamed Saber

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