In the five years of my Insight, I've been in four fender-benders. {blush}

While the other guy always got the ticket, decent defensive driving would have easily avoided two of them.

I can honestly say I was not hyper-miling in any of these accidents, or any near-misses.

I second xcel's assertion that hyper-miling makes you a good defensive driver.

 

I'm still a hybrid newbie, but I've found myself watching the MPG gauge a little too closely at times. Though it's true that watching the road for traffic patterns to maintain buffer and analyze where to coast makes me more aware of my surroundings, I must ashamedly admit that I've run a red light because I was too concerned with maxing out my MPG on a nice coast. I'm sure that won't happen anymore, now that I'm getting used to driving for economy. Just my 2¢.

My hypermilers lament remains that I can't bear to go without the AC on full blast all the time. Sigh - it kills my MPG.

 

I think you are both right. Sometimes you do get distracted by all the pretty numbers but at the same time you are also (usually) more aware of your enviroment. I think the dash is the most distracting when the car is new. After a while you get the hang of it and it does not require as much attention.

 

I think we're discussing two different things here, really. You're making reference to a personality type (hypermiler versus average Joe) but I was looking at it more as fact that the humain brain only has a certain amount of input that can be processed in any given second. While it's undoubtedly true a hypermiler is devoting more time to situational awareness than someone who's driving while watching DVD's on the dash, or reading a map, that isn't what I was referring to.

When I use hypermiling techniques, I do so as safely as I can, but it usually is still a safety compromise. Even if I only glance at my ScanGauge for 1 second out of every 30 seconds, that means that 3.3% of the time I'm driving, I'm not looking in my mirrors, ahead of me, or laterally for anything that represents danger. If I get in a shallow draft behind a semi (say, 50 feet back; just barely in it's wake) again I'm slightly compromising my safety by reducing my visibility to debris in the road that the semi may run over, for example. It's not exactly dangerous, but it's a very small, slight compromise.

If I had to assign a number to safety, with 100 representing the absolute maximum safety, such as perhaps the guy who drives the President's limo would be doing or something, it would go something like this:

Maximum situational awareness and defensive driving, including accellerating hard away from vehicles that appear to be weaving, or varying speed widely to constantly achieve maximum buffer in all directions for safe emergency lane changes, accelleration, and hard braking: 100
Normal driving, paying attention to surroundings, but not going out of your way to save gas or anything of that sort: 95
Hypermile driving, including looking well ahead and behind you for efficient gaps in traffic, but also allowing much tighter gaps between traffic ahead of you so you can maximize draft, coast, etc: 90
Time-compressed driving, aka doing 10 over the speed limit and changing lanes as needed to reach your destination quickly with high awareness of surroundings: 80
Engaging in intellectual conversation with a passenger in the vehicle while otherwise driving normally: 75
Talking on a hands-free cel phone while driving: 60
Eating, reading maps, staring intently at the navigation while swearing and trying to figure out why you missed your exit: 50
Driving while intoxicated to just barely within legal limits (such as 0.07% BAC): 35
Driving way above the speed limit and with total disregard for the safety of those around you: 15
Driving outright drunk, or while absolutely falling asleep at the wheel: 2

So based on this arbitrary analysis, hypermiling would have twice as much risk as normal driving (10 points away from max versus only 5 points away from max) but it would still rank 4 time safer than someone talking on the hands free, and 6.5 times safer than normal driving after having a single beer. I like my points system, and it's probably at least as accurate as many of those expensive studies you read about in the news. Heck, mine didn't even cost the taxpayers a single dollar!

 

As I've mentioned, my normal was agressive tailgating.
It's interesting this thread has moved to safety.

I remember my normal- it was riding the bumper until intimidation and if I could, get it out of my way. Yes, sometimes a real jerk and risky liability to my family.

Once I got behind this young (Mid 20's) girl and I could see a child playing in a rear carset.
Well, she wouldn't budge or speed past 85 and my '94 Dodge wasn't exactly Indy 500 equipment so I briefly backed off. As ususal I floored it for a running start but as I began to pass her she floored it too. I wasn't quite clear of her car yet and gradually cut her off.

Oh! How she had wrath! Complete insanity, especially with a child.
Miles down the road she cut in front of the car ahead and forced him out of the lane so now she was in front of me.
First she wagged her finger and ponytail at me then while going ~80MPH down the left lane she locks the brakes up right in front to create a collision.
Swerving out of the way I got in front again and tried to get down the road and forget the whole thing.
She used the same tecnique again to gain the advantage in front and locked up again.
This time I had to use the HOV lane to escape and we ended up in a chase exceeding 100MPH. Keep in mind this is 5:30 traffic. Extremely poor, dangerous judgement on both our accounts.

In another thought, I used to always drive 85-90MPH home down an unlit grassy median 70MPH limit freeway.
I also realized that I was very dangerously overshooting my already dim, frosted over plastic headlight lenses and could slam an unseen object in less than a second.

Why did I drive like that? To get home 10-15 minutes sooner and the exitement.

When someone brings up safety regarding hypermiling these (and more) thoughs come to mind.

For the first 6-9 months of learning hypermiling I'd get home with a slight sore back and sore Right foot/leg. During my initial FE training period I was so tense to straining and drove literally on the edge of the seat, also creating somewhat of risk for watching the FCD too much.
Well, I got over that too and learned to relax in my new "normal", which keeps me keenly aware of what is going on all around me, as xcel has touched on.

Roll a stopsign at a vacant benign intersection? Sure.
It beats being up on 2 wheels around a hairpin curve (So I was told as a younger driver)