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Hypermilers - are they all nutters?
Well, probably not all of them. But take look at the antics that some of them get up to like not slowing around corners (which is just down-right dangerous), driving without shoes to be able to better manipulate the gas pedal, drafting behind trucks - another dangerous pastime. It somehow brings up images of nutty, dangerous people behind the steering wheels of cars.
Maybe it has something to do with the “hyper” in hypermilers that gives the technique a bad rap. Somehow “hyper” makes it seem over the top; a bit like Clark Griswold and his family’s antics in National Lampoons Christmas vacation. One seems to think of old Shevy’s with bits and pieces falling off of it, RV’s blowing up and everything going just a little bit crazy and over the top.
Not that I’m knocking the movie - it was pretty funny and it is a classic. It is just that every time I hear of the antics of some hypermiler, I wonder if it is one of Clark Griswold’s family behind the wheel…
The phrase “hypermiling” just seems to lend itself to images of over the top frantic behaviour to squeeze the last mile out of the gas tank.
In the UK and Europe, they have people doing similar things to save on fuel, but over there it is called “eco-driving”, a phrase that seems to conjure up more pleasant images of people driving slower and doing things in a more calm, common sense way. They are not just doing it to save fuel though; it is about conserving the environment as well. It is being described as a way of driving that reduces the amount of fuel consumed, and reduces greenhouse gas emission, as well as accident rates.
It seems like hypermiling and eco-driving is going to be with us a for a long, long time. To get to a middle ground where things don’t seem so crazy, maybe we should coin a new phrase which does not have some of the nuttiness attached to it: eco-miling. Which phrase do YOU prefer?
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