Reading the road ahead

On of the key concepts about saving fuel is reading the road ahead in an effort to never have to come to a complete stop. If you've ever had the misfortune to have broken down and needed to push a car, you'll know that its pretty hard to get a car moving, but once it is moving keeping it going is actually pretty easy. We want to try and prevent the car having to move away from a standstill as much as we can whilst still being a safe and responsible driver.

So how can we go about this? What does "reading the road" really mean? Put simply its all about being observant and planning your actions in advance. For example, imagine that a car some way ahead of you is waiting to turn right across traffic; do you either carry on at the same speed and brake just before you reach the car, or do you begin to slow down by lifting off the accelerator early? The answer in the context of saving fuel is to begin slowing down early, with the hope being that by the time you get there, the car turning right has gone and you don't need to stop. This way you save fuel whilst you are getting there, and you save fuel by not having to accelerate away from stationary. Remember the key points here - we are trying to preserve our momentum by avoiding unnecessarily slowing down.

Here are some of the things you could look out for whilst out and about, and ideas about driving style that will help with fuel consumption. Please remember - always drive safely and with consideration for others on the roads. We've found that by employing this observant and conservative driving style we have not only improved fuel consumption, but its actually pretty relaxing too - not only mentally, but also by not needing to constantly change gears and keep moving our feet around so much...something that many drivers of automatic cars will no doubt agree with!

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