The Number One Gas Robbing Problem!

There is an activity that is the single biggest gas robber. You must constantly battle this gas robber to prevent it from stealing your gas. Any time you drive your car you encounter this problem.

The number one gas robbing problem is running your car when your car is not moving. In other words, allowing your car to idle. Idling is the largest single factor in lowering your gas mileage.

When your car is running and you are stopped you are getting zero miles per gallon. This is worth repeating. When your car is idling meaning the motor is running but you are not going anywhere, you are getting zero miles per gallon.

If you are driving on the freeway for 10 minutes and you are getting 30 miles per gallon, and then traffic stops and you idle without moving for 10 minutes your average miles per gallon just dropped from 30 down to 15. The longer you idle, the lower your average miles per gallon gets.

There are several factors that contribute to conditions that cause you to waste fuel idling. The biggest culprits are red lights. Every time you stop at a red light, you are forced to idle your car and burn gas at a rate of zero miles per gallon. Please note that I am not advocating not stopping at red lights! I am just pointing out one condition causing idling.

Another contributor to excessive idling is rush hour. The increased volume of traffic on the highways during rush hour causes you to stop more often. As a result you idle more during rush hour and waste more fuel than in non rush hour periods.

The red light problem becomes exaggerated during rush hour. Because there is higher traffic volume in the rush hour period, you have to spend more time at red lights. For example, you may be able to make it through a red light in one cycle during normal driving conditions, but that same red light may take two, three or even four cycles to get through in the rush hour period. Your idling time is thereby increased two, three or even four times.

The increased idling is stealing your fuel, and lowering your average mpg or miles per gallon. But it gets even better! There is even another major cause of increased idling time:the hated orange barrels. Road construction stops traffic. This increases your idling time. Add rush hour to the mix and it makes it worse, producing even more traffic delays and more idling time.

In order to fight this gas robbing condition, you need to plan your trips to avoid these situations as much as possible. Plan your routes to minimize red lights. Try and avoid lights that you know require long waits. Plan to avoid areas where you know there is construction. Try the best that you can to avoid driving during rush hour. Stay later at work, arrive earlier at work. If you can, try to stagger your regular work hours.

Avoiding as many idle producing situations will help you maintain better gas mileage. If you can minimize situations where you have to sit idling your car, you will go a long way towards increasing your fuel economy, saving gas and saving money.

About the Author

Scott Siegel is the author of a 143 page manual of industry insider information on saving gas and money at the pump (beatthegaspump.com). Visit us to learn how you can get better gas mileage. Find out how to increase gas mileage. You are welcome to reprint this article - but get your own unique content version here.

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