Watch me drive slower than everyone else pressuring them into overtaking me thus increasing the chances of a collision because the government put up a sign that said so.
You’re barely even saving any fuel. Maintaining speed uses much less fuel than getting up to speed, and depending on the gearing and aerodynamics of the car it may even be more efficient to cruise above whatever the speed limit happens to be. You’re probably costing all the people who have to overtake you a bit of extra fuel, though.
Go the common speed as long as it’s within the realm of reason. This is day 1 of driver’s ed, people.
Tell me how “the aerodynamics of the car” somehow just invalidate the drag equation that clearly states that drag increases proportional to the square of the velocity. Going 160km/h rather than 130km/h increases fuel consumption by about 30%. That’s what you actually learn in driver’s ed.
Regarding “depending on the gearing” – do you realize how significant the overlap between the gears is? You don’t need to drive 10km/h faster to get into the next gear.
You can drive a brick, and if you’re in a line of traffic moving faster, your aerodynamics are much different than sitting in the slow lane with nobody in front of you. Drafting is real.
…unless you’re riding the bumper of the car in front of you, drafting effects are negligible, and if you are riding the bumper of the car in front of you then you’re not leaving enough space to panic-stop safely, potentially nor enough space to see beyond them to anticipate traffic ahead, either…
You are the worst, please don’t drive.
And if that was the lesson you got on day 1 of your drivers education, go ahead and shoot your driving teacher, before he can spreas more nonsense. This might save a few lifes.
It makes sense when merging onto a highway.
If it’s busy and everyone else is zooming by, merging at a slower speed is dangerous. Speed up, match the flow (even if speeding), merge, then you can ease off to whatever speed you want. This is what I was tought in drivers’ ed, and it makes sense.
Once you’re on the highway though, yeah, it doesn’t apply anymore.
My car follows the laws of physics and gets best mileage at its lowest speed, with a tail wind. Yours would too if it weren’t for the type of engine it has having a power level below which it can’t operate efficiently.
I suspect mine is also more efficient than yours at 51mph
