FREE FUEL SAVE MONEY and drive the road to energy independence! Annoyed by emptying your wallet at the pump? Well, you can help fix the problem! You don't need a hybrid car (although it helps). The biggest secret is already right there in your right foot. Improved technique can not only save a lot of gas -- 20% today and 50% or better with practice -- it also makes driving safer, and more interesting and fun. Although this information is well-known and has been circulating for years, today it is much more vital to put into practice. Not only will you save money yourself, but helping to create LESS demand for fuel can drive prices down in the short term. And it's easy to do. Think of it this way: if you went through life as though it was a basketball game -- running, stopping, darting, dodging constantly -- you'd be TIRED! You know that moving your own weight like that takes a lot of energy and gatorade, so you don't do it all the time. Now consider that your car weighs twenty times what you do, and if you always force it to operate in a similar "athletic" manner it IS going to drink much more fuel on the way from here to there. Unless you're actually in a competitive event, isn't it better to avoid doing that and put the extra money into your own pocket instead of Big Oil profits? There is absolutely no reason to compete against other drivers on the public roads -- it only causes greater mental stress on everyone, and isn't worth the headache, the wasted fuel, or the hazards you might cause for yourself and everyone else. Cooperation saves much more time and money than conflict. * The single most important thing is to drive SMOOTHLY, keeping engine RPM down low and avoiding jackrabbit starts. That doesn't mean going too slowly -- it means moderate acceleration and braking with normal speeds in between. Since brakes only waste energy, try to anticipate stops earlier and coast gently toward them, using momentum instead of gas to get you there. You'll often be able to predict when lights will turn green and traffic will get moving ahead of you, and be able to drift right through without having to completely stop. * Leave a LARGE following distance between cars, which is safer and gives you a larger "cell" to do your smoother driving inside of. You can see much farther ahead and predict situations and actions. Don't fret about someone jumping into that gap -- you actually HELP overall traffic flow by accomodating them and simply restoring your long distance, especially at ramps and intersections where paths need to cross each other. It is much easier to track the speed of surrounding traffic if you're NOT crunched right up against the backside of another car. * Try to slow down on the highway -- 60-65 MPH tops. There's a good reason that you hear this over and over -- power (fuel) needed to push against air resistance increases by the CUBE of your speed, and seriously ramps up around 62 MPH on average. It really matters. * Inflate your tires to the maximum pressure listed on the tire SIDEWALL, not what the door-placard says. Modern tires are designed for higher pressure in general, such as 44 psi cold. * Keep your vehicle well maintained -- filters, oil, wheel alignment, etc. Try to empty out any heavy "dead weight" items you don't need to carry around. There's a lot more information out there. Start getting your free fuel today! Check out these websites for more hints to help you "hypermile": http://www.gassavers.org/ http://www.edmunds.com/fueleconomy/ http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/drive.shtml and for a real challenge, http://www.cleanmpg.com/ (v.05d 060914)