No left turns saves gas

Sounds odd but that’s one of the ways UPS saves gas. The rising price of gas in the U.S. ($2.15/gallon around me) has a lot of people trying to find ways to get better mileage out of their vehicles. UPS is accomplishing this by doing the following:

Better route mapping
- UPS is using a new, high end computer program to map routes. Their suggestion for the every day user is to map your driving in an oval shape. They also suggest making the last stops close to your house.
Turning vehicles off if stops are longer than 60 seconds
- That’s a given. A car running for more that that amount of time waste a fuel if it’s done frequently. This is especially true during the summer because running the air conditioner causes the vehicle to use more fuel.
No left turns
- This is the strangest suggestion but the reasoning is simple. Turning left causes you to wait at intersections longer than turning right therefore wasting gas because you are sitting idle. This goes back to mapping out your route.

In the news story I saw this on, they profiled a woman on one of her daily runs. Her normal route was 40 miles and took 2 hours and 20 minutes. UPS mapped out the route and it only took 27 miles and about 50 minutes. The savings added up to $2.25 in just one day.

Other ways to save fuel are to keep your tire pressure at the recommended amount. Low tire pressure causes more of the tire surface to be on the road. More rubber on the road means more force from the engine to turn the tires. Also, regular maintenance on the engine keeps it running near peak performance. If you haven’t ran a fuel system cleaner through it in the last 5,000 miles, go get a bottle. It’s cheap and keeps fuel flowing like it should.

One of the funniest ways of saving money on gas is people buying the hybrid vehicles. That, in itself, is not funny. The funny part is that they are paying between $2 & $3,000 over list price because these vehicles are in demand and they want one now. How is that really saving money? Do you have any idea how much gas you can buy for $3,000? It would be one thing if they were buying them to conserve fuel but the main reason is to save money. I would like to get a diesel and convert it to use vegetable oil. Now that is alternative fuel.

If the going is real easy, beware, you may be headed down hill. -Author Unknown

06.Jul.05 General