Drive Without Brakes: Eco-Driving
September 15, 2009 in Green cars
Free riding without brakes
No brakes improve fuel economy
Maintaining proper cushion space in between
Driving without brakes always makes me to think of the free fall and the roller coaster ride where there is no break during the fall. This is actually a good technique that will save you a lot of fuel when followed with cars in heavy traffic. The basic idea is to conserve the momentum, which is built by burning gas.
Lets take an example, you drive to attain 60 miles/hr by burning gas. Now suddenly the traffic slows down and you apply brakes to come down to 30 mph. Later, the traffic speeds up and you accelerate back to 60 mph. How many times does this happen daily while driving?� What if you had to go to 60 mph only once? This would save the fuel used to go from 40 mph to 60 mph. This is the concept of DWB.
Now, what would you do if you were happen to drive without brakes? First, you would look for enough space between you and the driver ahead. Next, you would look on to the drivers ahead of you keenly, maintaining a good space in between. Thirdly, you would look for the brake lights of few or more drivers ahead of you to slow down without applying brakes. For this you would need to drive the car with less acceleration so that you don’t need to apply breaks frequently. Do not accelerate when you think that the cars in front of you are going to slow down. So by the time when you are again accelerating, the vehicles ahead of you would start to accelerated before you catching up with them.
This is known to everyone, but seldom people use these or follow which could save the fuel dramatically. Its really amazing that how these small things can contribute to a lot of fuel saving. Just we need to practice few good driving methods.
5 Comments
Leave a Reply
1 Trackback
Eco-driving: Without brakes | Cars Guide
on September 15, 2009
[...] Read more: Eco-driving: Without brakes [...]
Hey,I seriourly never knew this and I am very happy that atleast now I knew it….Thanks alot and you have also presented it in a good way!!!!
Driving without brakes are virtually impossible on Land. I cannot imagine my car without brakes i need to press brakes all the time when i drive. I drive fast and its important my brakes are there and in working condition.
Without brakes i think is possible in Air or in water. Most of the boats don’t have any brake system they just slow down when the engine is stopped. Also when we are flying i don’t think brakes are required.
Anyway good post
DWD sounds funny http://hypermiling.net63.net/2008/09/03/dwb-driving-without-brakes/
See MARK, i know its impossible to drive without brakes. It can be followed easily, as i do follow this. But this is a technique which can be followed if you have the intention to increase your fuel economy…….
hi
nice work….. really great idea to increase fuel economy but implementing it will take much time i suppose….
any way nice work.
This is only good to save on fuel really, but imagine the angry drivers you would have to deal with because of your slowed techniques… If you’re in bumper to bumper traffic, I highly doubt this is suitable because you would need to move up small spots and then brake to keep close to the other cars.
Im with Mark because I drive really fast as well, mostly because I have to rush from place to place…so my brakes must be in order at all times for those moments