‘It Was Just a Habit’
By simply installing feedback devices that alerted them to bad driving practices that diminished fuel efficiency, the city of Denver was able to improve MPG by 10% (remember, how you drive can be as influential as what you drive), reports the Los Angeles Times.
“Our fast starts and hard braking were virtually eliminated in the last six months,” he said. “This is about driver education and self-awareness — to make people more thoughtful.”
Juan Marsh, a field supervisor with Denver’s parks and recreation department, said he was surprised to learn about his driving habits — for example, how often he left his engine running while he visited a job site and spoke to a crew.
“It was just a habit,” Marsh said.
The feedback from his accelerometer “instantly made me conscious of those issues,” he said. “I just flat-out didn’t realize I was wasting fuel that way.”
I’m not sure if this was studied, but work by Green Road has found that, among drivers of fleet vehicles, those who had the best fuel economy in their driving also had the safest driving record.
(Horn honk to Planetizen)
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 4:54 pm and is filed under Cars, Drivers, Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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February 3rd, 2009 at 11:36 pm
I keep thinking that requiring an instantaneous fuel economy indicator on the dash would do quite a bit for peoples driving behavior. And it’s not like that would cost much money to add.