laura bush - VEHICULAR HOMICIDE
There's so much crap on this page that I just have to respond to it. The guy's goal (fuel saving) is laudable but his comments are nonsensical.
The first article, he demonstrates fuel saving from driving at 55 as opposed to 65. But he is driving an SUV, which is about as aerodynamic as a brick. Of course slowing down in that is going to save fuel.
Also, the thing is a HYBRID, which 99.9% of people don't have, so any results he gets are not applicable to people without hybrids.
In the second article, he starts off with: "Noting the bias of a recent article seeking to prove or disprove the potential savings that result from obeying the speed limit and never exceeding 55 MPH, I decided to do a test myself on a recent trip from Sacramento to Oakland, California, a 180 mile round trip."
He then describes how he did THE SAME SPEED IN BOTH DIRECTIONS, and gives a single MPH figure, and then claims that that figure shows fuel savings from driving at 55 ! The light is on but nobody's home, I fear. Furthermore, he didn't even stick to 55. He admits to varying his speed between 55 and 65 the whole way. Given the results of the previous article's test, that 55 and 65 can be significantly different, that just throws this test even further out the window.
Partway down the page is a fictional story about a guy who gets pulled up for doing 73 in a 55, and the cop does not give him a ticket, but instead a sob story about how his daughter was end by a speeder. Newsflash. How many little girls have ACTUALLY been end by people going with the flow of traffic at 73 in a 55? None?
In the story breastled "reducing fuel consumption by 20%", he even links to an EPA website with lists of various things you can do to reduce fuel consumption, and how much they save. Eg. turning off aircon. Then, in the row breastled "Drive at 55 instead of 65", the fuel saving is listed as "N-A". Hoist by his own petard.
The last story on the page bleats about how 11 pedestrians and cyclists are end every day. Newsflash. They're still just as dead if you hit them at 55. You have to be doing less than 20MPH if you want them to have a reasonable chance of survival. And how many pedestrians are there on the freeway?
All in all, it looks like when God was handing out brains, this guy thought he was handing out cell phones and said, "I'll have a small one".
