Light Foot

Light Foot Habits:
Accelerating: You're always gentle with the gas pedal, after a red light, after a stop sign, you gently apply pressure to the gas pedal. As the acceleration catches up to where you are on the pedal you gently apply more gas to accelerate further if necessary. You develop a feathery touch to the pedal. The pedal is your friend...

Coasting: When you see a stop sign up ahead or a light that you know will be red by the time you get to it you take your foot off the gas and start coasting to the light or stop sign. After a while you'll get good at this. I have a standard shift so I just throw it into neutral and I can really coast far with not much decrease in speed. If I'm on a heavy stop sign street I'll actually give it a little extra punch during acceleration and then throw it into neutral right away and coast away. I don't know how automatic transmissions behave with repeated neutral/drive control so I cannot recommend that. But for manual transmissions it works great. Here's the thing: I believe that in traditional driving the right foot is generally on the gas or on the brake. Now you need to get comfortable with a third position - coast - where you are ready to either accelerate or brake as needed by the situation ahead.

Switching Lanes: Instead of flooring it to jump in between a couple of cars, wait for a wide opening and calmly switch lanes and slowly accelerate to that lane's prevailing speed.

Turn ahead: You'll learn when you can coast to it. The corner is not going anywhere and you usually know in advance - "I'm going to make the next right (or left - traffic permitting)".

Middle Lane: This is usually your best bet on 3 Lane Highways. The left lane goes too fast and usually risks a ticket. The right lane leads to too much stop & go with ramps and all. The middle lane is just right... I have been paying attention to my driving habits and I actually spend a good amount of time in the right lane too. However, I look ahead for people merging in and out and jump back over to the middle lane when needed by ramps rather than slowing down for the merging traffic and then having to speed up again.

Downhill: Coast away! Apply a little gas if you are slowing down and apply a little brake if you are speeding up.

Uphill: Just try to maintain your speed. This is not the situation to speed up or pass someone unless they are really going slow.

Cruise Control: If you have it learn how to use it for highway driving. I'm a big fan of cruise control but it takes some practice to be good and comfortable with it. It can help to regulate your speed up and down hills plus it could help you avoid a ticket from temporarily going too fast at highway speeds.

Waiting: Instead of creeping up to the red light or stop sign over & over again. Just wait until you have nearly a car length to creep up.

RR Xing: In the morning I pay attention for a bus ahead of me and switch lanes to avoid that full stop and go around them at the tracks.

Philosophy: If you haven't already noticed, it is not about putting a number on it. It's all about transition! In my experience, if you're cruising at 55, 65, or 75 you will get nearly the same miles per gallon as long as you're going at a steady pace. By this I mean that you're not flooring it to pass cars every couple of minutes (or seconds). You should maintain a safe speed and by that I mean not to go too slow or too fast. Usually, the safest thing to do is to roughly go the prevailing speed of the lane you're in. I recommend the middle lane as previously mentioned. If you want to do exactly the speed limit and drive in the left lane all your going to do is piss a lot of people off. The CHILL OUT SAVE GAS movement is not about imposing your will on other drivers. It is about safely adjusting your gas pedal control habits to not waste gas but continue to flow with traffic.

Disclaimer: Wo wo wo, don't blame us for any misfortunes that befall you! It's like learning to drive again... you have to multi-task, there is no way around it. SAFETY FIRST! The practices described herein are mostly asking that you think further ahead. In theory this should lead to safer driving! We take no responsibility for any misfortunes that you believe are due to "chilling out".