It’s no secret that I was born to drive like a city mouse. When the streets are dry up here in Canada, I take every opportunity to fly like the wind—I don’t speed {more than necessary}, but I do like to get ahead of the other cars right off the line at a red light. At stop signs, I wait the cursory three seconds—but not a moment longer.
Image from here.
And yesterday, when the idiot woman in the Lexus™ expected me to slow down just so she could merge into my lane (which I did not, because puh-lease…), and then crammed in front of me at the last second, and then STOMPED! on her brakes as soon as she was in my lane, just to make me mad…I may or may not have gestured rudely to her rear view mirror. I suppose she expected me to let her in—even though I had the right of way—just because most Canadians would’ve. Drivers in this country are just so courteous, you see, and I…
…I am not.
But all that is in the past now. It is with much regret that I announce my days of lead-footed driving are no more. No longer do I “give ‘er” as soon as the light turns green; gone are my days of gunning it just to get ahead of the pack. Why, you ask? Why the sudden change of heart?
Thor is a beast of a machine who hasn’t been economical a day in his life.
Ever since I killed Tamra Camry, I’ve had the good pleasure of having Thor as my chariot. He’s my trusty steed. Only he’s not very trusty. Or steedly. Nevertheless, I’m grateful we had a backup vehicle for me to use after I incompetently destroyed my other one. I won’t complain.
Or maybe I will, because there’s just one thing: Thor uses 1/4 tank of gas to get me to school and back—that same drive would have taken Tamra Camry less than 1/8 tank. It’s kind of disturbing to drive to school only two days and suddenly see the tank on empty.
People actually convert their fuel gauges to look like this. Brilliant. Image from here.
I was bemoaning these woes to Poor Kyle last week, and he said to me, most unsympathetically, “Well, you’d get better mileage if you’d just slow down.”
I, of course, took exception to that, because I never drive any faster than the speed limit should be, and I told him so.
“It’s more about how you drive than how fast you drive,” he said smugly.
Naturally, I was confused, because that didn’t make any sense—“how fast I drive” is basically my identity, and that’s no different than “how I drive.”
Poor Kyle went on to explain that if I could manage to work my way up to the speed limit *slowly,* and never rev the engine, I’d get substantially better mileage.
“Never rev the engine?” I asked, incredulous. “How is it even possible? That’s no way to live!”
But evidently, it’s true: if I keep Thor’s motor revving under 2,000 RPMs, I get better mileage. I’ve been trying it all week, and I’m sorry to say that it actually works. Already, I’ve been to town and back twice, and it only took 1/4 tank of fuel—that’s double last week’s average.
Dadgummit.
As much as I’m loath to admit it—and I am very, very loath—Poor Kyle’s method really works.
Poor Poor Kyle; he’s been trying to get me to ease up my driving habits for years now. Always before, when I asked him why I should drive more slowly, his reason was because I might run over a kid playing in the street. Horrible reasoning, Poor Kyle; it would never happen—too obscure. But tell me it could save a gallon of fuel, and I suddenly become the granny driver I always used to tailgate.
Image from here.
Since there’s really no excuse not to be driving more conservatively {except the sheer tedium of it}, I’ve decided to make my daily commute as fun as possible. I stare at the rev-o-meter almost constantly; I cringe when I approach an uphill road; I don’t even use cruise control, for fear not being able to regulate the revolutions.
It takes me 20 minutes just to work up to the speed limit. I’m halfway done with my commute before I ever hit 100 kilometers per hour. On the highway into town, there’s always a clear open road ahead of me, and a loooong line of cars backed up behind me, itching to pass.
For all intents and purposes, I’m becoming a hypermiler.
Or, in other words, I am now the driver I used to hate. Just shove me behind the wheel of a Lexus™, and I’ll be flipping me off in no time.
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