Is driving slower better?

Its time or money. More time in a car to save the gas or more gas to get out of the car quicker. Your choice.

 

Until you factor in permanent or fatal injuries that occur at a great % at higher speeds. Some things you can't put a $ tag on.

 

Bought and paid for? Chevy, VW, Jeep all have diesels available, or will soon, that are not in heavy duty trucks (Cruze, Colorado, Jetta, Liberty, Cherokee). Theyve engineered ways to eliminate or reduce NOx's and particulates (not greenhouse gases as you stated). And theyve done it affordably. You should be blaming the market and public perception, not EPA.

 

This is true. But if something is going to happen, well then something is going to happen. Just how i see it. I would rather travel at my usual speed which is only like 70-75 and if something is going to happen then it will happen.

 

There are several factors as you stated, but regulations on Diesels have hampered the market unfairly for years. They've had 40mpg Rangers in Brazil for a while. I think a 40+mpg Tacoma/Ranger would be a pretty big hit here if one were available.

 

and there's the problem, you need to think outside the box.

"Necessity is the mother of invention" - Plato. It means a need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem.

I occasionally get dirty looks when some idiot in a Prius sees me go by at 90mph (we have roads in Texas where the limit is 85mph) in my wagon with enough exhaust note to scare small children and animals. They don't realize I am doing more for the environment than they ever could.

See, the problem with these "environmentally safe" cars is that they really aren't. Several reports that follow a car from beginning to end, from design to being scrapped, really determine a car's value. Here's one example, the battery for the Prius is a nickel hydride (NiMH) battery. That nickle comes from a mine in Ontario Canada. That smelted nickel then has to travel (via train and container ship) to Europe to be refined, then to China to be made into "nickel foam," then to Japan for assembly, and finally to the United States. All said, the Prius consumes the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of fuel before its odometer clicks to 1 (Wired Magazine).

Even the design of the battery is very old, the nickle battery comes from 1903. Why has it not been improved? Because we don't have to, we don't need to. Which is directly caused by the fact that we have plenty of oil. We have, right now, 53 years of known oil sitting in the ground using today's technology. That does not include the 66% we leave behind because it would cost too much to get it, or any new stuff, or any decline of use from new technology. In reality, we have more than 100+ years.

Necessity is the mother of invention, right? So, if you really want to help the environment, you should want to use that oil up as quickly as possible, and start pushing all those scientist to work harder on batteries and other solutions (Hydrogen). They need to be inspired! If your car is getting more than 10-15 miles to the gallon you ARE NOT an environmentalist! No, you are just into status quo, keep the same thing, blah, blah, blah. Tree-hugger my butt!

If you REALLY love this planet, you will sell your Corolla and buy a 1970 Chevelle SS396 and blip that throttle all the way home. Limit motorcycles to a minimum of 1000 cc's, even scooters. On ramps are launching pads, light 'em up! If you're a girl, maybe you want to try a Camaro? That was a joke, lighten up! Whatever, just go out and burn up some gas and tires (which is also made from petroleum), and hit your local drag strip. Call your congressman and demand they support more motorsports, racetracks, the whole shebang! Heck, even let the drag boats in! The hard fact is there is no pressure to find an alternative but once that oil is gone you can bet those alternatives will show up. If you aren't putting 25 gallons a week though those pipes, can you really say you care about our planet?

 

The amount of people on the roads that actually know how to drive is probably less than 1%. The rest of the folk driving over the speed limit are either ignorant to the realities of speed or are just plain stupid.


I would personally encourage people to drive 10-15 below the speed limit if that wasnt as dangerous, if not more dangerous.

 

Excessive speed rarely causes accidents. But speed always makes accidents worse.

I got my drivers license just before the 55 mph speed limit and made my 1st 5000+ mile road trip when that was the law. Driving 55 is horrible, boring as hell, but it does save gas. Especially with the cars made in the 1970's and 80's. Newer, more aerodynamic and efficient cars, even trucks, can now get pretty decent fuel mileage up to about 70 mph.

With my trucks right around 70 mph on open roads seems to be a good compromise. Driving 60-65 does result in better fuel mileage, but the difference isn't that dramatic. But over 70 mph and you see fuel consumption go up considerably. I've been in some places with 80 mph speed limits, but for the most part just don't want to drive that fast.

Vehicles today are also far safer than the ones in the 1980's. Much easier to avoid an accident and much less likely to be injured or die if you are in one.

Lotta BS in this post.

The technology is already there. It just isn't economically feasible at the present time. Internal combustion engines didn't replace horse drawn carriages overnight. There were growing pains, but the technology eventually got to the point where gasoline powered vehicles were the better option. The same will happen with electrical powered cars. And hydrogen fuel cells are simply another way to generate electricity. That technology was available in the 1960's. We couldn't have gone to the moon without it. Hydrogen powered fuel cells provided both the electricity and drinking water for all of the Apollo missions. When you mix hydrogen and oxygen, you generate electricity and the byproduct is water.

 

Mods please ban. /s

I stated something very similar and got banned for a month.

 

The OP was almost 7 years ago.

 

No one likes a tattletale.

 

Cool.

 

You don’t know what /s means do you?

 

Correct. As a matter of fact, higher speeds tend to cause fewer crashes. That being said, that only applies when conditions are right and traffic is moving at that speed. It's the outliers that are the most dangerous, both fast and slow.

I couldn't agree more. The people who love to talk about the "inefficiencies" of things like electric cars, wind turbines, etc. tend to be talking out of their asses. They present some set of information that can be presented in such a way to present their point but completely ignore the major reality in that efficiency doesn't happen overnight and certainly doesn't happen when any new technology is just getting its footing.

 

OP's post was from 2014 and OP was last on in 2015.

 

Ok...

 

Probably driving too slow to catch up and reply.

 

Walking saves the most fuel.