Before you turn your car on...1. Prepare yourself. Buckle your seat belt, adjust your mirrors, check your lipstick, set up your cell phone. Also, instead of turning on the motor and rolling down to the end of your driveway to see if it's safe to turn out, wait until you're sure that it is, and then start moving.2. Choose your route. Driving the main interstates or arterials is not always the best way to get from point A to point B. There's often less traffic if you take a more direct route, even if the posted speed is slower. Besides, "speed is the enemy of fuel economy."3. See how far you can roll. If you're on a slope, why do you need your engine? Put the car in neutral, take your foot off the brake, and coast until your first stop. Your top speed will probably be 5 to 10 mph. "That's about what you'd be doing in a parking lot," says Gerdes. "And there are probably fewer people around your driveway."Driving around town…1. Wait before pulling onto a main road. The more space you give yourself to accelerate gently and smoothly, the more fuel you'll save. "Just wait until it clears. No reason to get rushed. It only puts you a minute behind where you would have been."2. Coast if you can.3. At a long stoplight, shut your engine off. That's what a hybrid does. There are areas in the world where it's illegal to idle your vehicle for any period of time. "If you are a resident of Kawasaki, Japan, when you pull up to a stop light, they actually have employed people to stand there and shame you for leaving your engine running."4. Limit the amount of heat and air-conditioning you use. In an urban environment, air-condition can lower fuel economy by as much as 30 percent. If you can't get by without it, try turning it off temporarily at a stoplight or stop sign, so you don't further reduce your car's efficiency during acceleration. "A lot of hybrids do that, too."On the highway...1. Drive without brakes. In fact, pretend your brakes are faulty: You'll use them less, allow more space between you and other drivers, and leave yourself more time to slow down-in short, you'll be safer and more efficient. And always anticipate the road 30 seconds ahead of your current position-look for brake lights, cars merging, jaywalkers-which should allow you to avoid most unnecessary braking situations. Bonus points: Play chess with stoplights. If you see three in a row, game the timing to coast through all of them.2. Go slower. Remember, "speed kills fuel economy." There's no need to travel 10 mph over the limit. It's not going to save you much time over your normal commute. By way of example, Gerdes explains, "A Ford Escape Hybrid is rated at thirty-two mpg. Do you know what it gets at forty mph? About sixty mpg." That's because every vehicle has a certain speed that offers maximum horsepower for minimum fuel consumption. And that sweet spot is rarely 10 miles above the highway speed limit.3. Keep a constant load on your engine. Imagine a roller coaster: It goes down hills and up hills, but never stops completely. You can do the same thing in your car-using momentum you've already generated-but without sacrificing as much speed. So instead of setting the cruise control to 60 and having the engine work overtime to maintain that speed on an incline, lock your foot on the accelerator in a fixed position; you'll lose a little speed cresting the hill, but pick it right back up going down the other side. And your engine will never know the difference. Ditto the cars behind you.4. Experiment with "pulse and glide," a technique whereby you accelerate to the speed limit and then coast in neutral until you lose too much speed. You would get phenomenal results by speeding up to 50 mph and slowing down to 5 mph (which is impractical basically everywhere), but you'll see satisfying results in almost any range in between.
