Expert Driving Tips Show You How to Save Gas and Save You Money

With gas prices on the rise and fast approaching the $5.00 per gallon mark in some parts of the country, many consumers are looking for ways to save gas both by finding the lowest price on gas and by finding ways to use less gas during their drive. Several agencies have released some driving tip designed to save gas and save you money by driving more efficiently and economically.

What follows are some of the easiest ways to save by using less gas while driving. While many of these tips will only save a small percentage of gas by improving the gas mileage of your car or vehicle, when taken together they can add up to a lot of savings on your gas costs.

Drive Smooth: The reason that city gas mileage is typically not as good as highway mileage is due to all of the stops and starts due to red lights and traffic. To help improve gas mileage in city driving, or driving on roads with stop lights, you can improve efficiency by accelerating smoothly. Experts warn against rapid acceleration as it burns a lot of extra gas. You will get up to the same speed only a few seconds later with a smooth acceleration and burn less gas.

Drive Smart: Don’t rush toward the next traffic light. Instead drive speed limit. In many areas the traffic lights are timed based on the speed limit to allow for a better flow of traffic. If you maintain a constant speed you should encounter fewer red lights.

Coasting: In anticipation of upcoming red lights, exit ramps, or other traffic slow downs ahead, many frugal drivers take advantage of the car’s current momentum and shift their car into neutral as they approach the slow down. When you take your foot off of the accelerator with the car still in drive, the engine actually helps to slow the car, but this uses more gas at a higher engine RPM.

By shifting into neutral, the engine goes to idle and only friction of the tires and the air resistance slow the car. As a result, if you plan it right, the car will slow over a longer period during which time the car is burning much less gas and improving your gas mileage. It should be noted that if you don’t plan far enough ahead, this may cause additional wear on your brakes over time.

Cruise Control: As with stops and starts, fluctuations in your speed are also inefficient when it comes to fuel economy. Once you get to your desired speed, setting the cruise control on your vehicle will help improve your gas mileage. Consider this any time you have more than a few minutes of open road ahead, and always when driving on the highway.

Slow Down: Government estimates indicate that for every 5 miles per hour you drive on the highway above 60 miles-per-hour, you lose several percent in your gas mileage. The result is more money spent on gas. For highway driving, the best advice to save gas is to drive 55-60 mph and set you cruise control.

While there are other ways to save on gas including planning your route to make more right turns than left, or driving when traffic flow is better, these gas saving tips should help get you started.

Perhaps the best way to save gas would be to consider purchase of an all-electric vehicle. Vehicles like the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf are great options for regular commutes to and from work, and because and electric motor is so much more efficient than an internal combustion engine, the cost of electricity used is much lower than the cost of gas to drive the same distances.