When I was at my safety office for a briefing, I noticed this chart against one of the walls. I wrote it down to share with everyone on GH.

It shows how much time it takes to drive a 10 mile stretch of road at 50 mph, and how much time you save by speeding, in increments of 5 mph.

MPH----minutes---time saved

50------12.00------00.00
55------10.54------01.06
60------10.00------02.00
65------09.14------02.46
70------08.34------03.26
75------08.00------04.00
80------07.30------04.30
85------07.03------04.57

 

Speaking as a man who could be a professor at driving school, ahem, not only is the saving of time incredibly small for 10-20 mph over even one hour, but the cost of safety goes up drastically. The chances of being killed at 55 mph are such, and when you increase your speed by 10mph your chances go up 18% and 20mph they go up to, wow, 50% more. So dont just think of the poor ole coyote in the street ahead of you, think of YOU! have a good one.

 

I actually approached this issue with an interesting twist--

Based on mileage figures from my HCH-1, I was able to determine that the actual price in extra fuel of driving 75mph as opposed to 60mph, estimating fuel economy at 45mpg and 60mpg respectively (actually, I believe the difference is a good deal smaller than that, but I chose nice even numbers to make calculating them a bit simpler). With regular at $2.30, I could drive 300 miles in 5 hours, at a cost of $11.50. Or, I could drive 300 miles in 4 hours at a cost of $15.33. In other words, you're paying at most $3.83 more to save a single hour. If we're literally talking about a single trip of 4 or 5 hours, I'd pay the extra $3.83 without giving it a second thought. For hte HCH-II which is somehwat more streamlined, and doesn't need to rev as high at 75, the difference would be even less.

I also believe 75 is a reasonable speed in terms of safety with modern vehicles on well-maintained roads. Many freeways are actually set at 75mph limit. Given that, a lot of people will continue to go 75 instead of 60 because it just doesn't cost that much more, especially for people who have to drive an hour or more each way. If that time means they could put in more hours at work, or have more leisure time ecah day, it woudl be worth a few bucks. (Of course, for less fuel-effiicent vehicles, the differential price will be much more than $3.83). People won't voluntarily drive slower until the gas price about doubles I suspect.

 

Just think of how much fuel they are burning if in a regular car! As a hybrid owner, I have gotten to a point where I don't care if I take a little longer to arrive at my destination. I like looking at my MPG.

 

I completely know the feeling, although at this point, I am still using every technique I can to maximize my MPG, while still keeping up with the flow, and accelerating the same rate as the other drivers on the road. I don't race to lights, I am light as can be on the throttle to hold speed, and I drive with load over hills. Despite my hill climb every day which totally kills me (costs me almost 6mpg every tank, compared to what I would have if I lived at the bottom), I average 48mpg instead of 53mpg (driving slower, slower accelerations), which is still excellent compared to what any other cars in my area are getting.

Also, I've found driving a steady 70-75 with the flow is not that much less efficient, either since I don't have crazy speed variations over in the right lane when trucks pull onto the freeway, or peopel cut over to exit, etc. Much less stressful too.

 

It's not worth the time to me either. Extrapolating the $3.83 cost for 300 miles to 30,000 miles and you get $383.00 for the 100 hrs, over the course of say 2 years. That is 100 hrs saved over the course of 11680 hrs using 16 awake hours a day as an assumption so over the course of 2 years you would save less than 1% of your awake hrs hauling a**. It's just not worth it considering the increased accident risk and increased severity should you have one. To each his own though. Signed a former a** hauler.

 

Bar10Dah: Your nice little table assumes a single driver who is able to maintain that speed safely -- e.g., on a rural interstate with not much traffic. If you think about the whole highway full of drivers, things change. On congested highways, if everyone goes 70-75 whenever they are able, there will be a lot of accidents as they come up on stalled traffic.
I used to travel from Worcester into Boston for an 11 am appointment. It would take 1 hour on the Mass Turnpike (an interstate divided hiway). It would take 1 hour 10 minutes on a route with less traffic (I290 to I495 to Rte 2 for locals). Eventually I always took the slower route because there were lots of accidents on the Mass Turnpike closer to Boston as cars going 60 to 70 caught up to stopped traffic. That 1 hour on the Mass Pike would sometimes become 2 hours or more, especially in the winter.
My theory is that traffic goes too fast causing more accidents that then slow down traffic. If everyone went a bit slower, on the average everyone would get there faster.
--Walter

 

First... what you fail to realize is, it's not my "nice little table." It was posted at a safety office.

And second... yes, it assumes a lot. Hence, it's a small table with nothing more than exact time/distance measurements. Perhaps, a disclaimer is in order. One that would state that this table is based on simple measurements, and not real world driving conditions, accel/decel times, integration of other traffic... But then by the time we get all that ironed out, well then the disclaimer will be longer than the actual content of the chart! Do we really need a disclaimer that reads like the corporate contract for Trump Towers?

 

Maybe we should start to put warning labels on coffee cups, letting us know that the "contents may be hot."

 

does anyone have the figures in the metric system?