Potentially Insane Ways To Increase Your Fuel Efficiency

Wayne, the world’s most fuel-efficient driver, really hates wasting gas. From MotherJones:

Wayne doesn’t get high mpg marks by tinkering with engines or using funky fuels or even, most days, by driving a hybrid. He gets them by driving consciously – hyperconsciously….

Wayne is doing no more than 15 miles per hour. Before he’s out of sight, though, he turns a full loop on the exit road to slow himself down, so he doesn’t have to brake at a traffic jam ahead. Wayne hates braking.

Here are just a few of the techniques Wayne uses to save gas.

We are not endorsing these, they’re just interesting:

• Avoid braking. As in, stop the car without braking.

• “Ridge-riding” This is Wayne’s term for riding over the white line. It tells people that he’s moving slowly, and has other benefits: “Ridge-riding, Wayne explains, saves gas in the rain, as it gets the wheels out of the puddly grooves in the road created by more, let’s say, traditional drivers. “People are burning fuel to throw water in the air,” he says, adding that you can hear if you’re driving in the road’s grooves or out of them.”

• Drive with no air conditioning, and with the windows up. Yes, “and.” Not “or”. And. (Wayne lives in the Chicago/Milkwaukee area, for those of you familiar with that region’s lovely weather.)

• Take sharp turns at 50 mph with the engine off.

• Push the car out of the driveway.

• Draft 18-Wheelers by driving close behind them. (Never do this!)

The lengths Wayne goes to save gas are strange, occasionally very unwise and sometimes oddly admirable. When the world ends, we’d like to know Wayne. Perhaps not before. —MEGHANN MARCO

This Guy Can Get 59 MPG in a Plain Old Accord. Beat That, Punk [MotherJones via Get Rich Slowly]

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