Monday, October 18, 2010

"Type A" Behavior And Fuel Economy

After some deliberation about "Green" actions that did not require leaving the house yesterday, I decided to plug two of the the TVs, cable boxes, and VCRs into a power strip, which I turned off.  Done. Piece of Cake! Today, however, required more soul-searching and challenging certain of my more closely-held values about time-management...

 My teenage son recently observed that I tend to gun the engine in the car and accelerate (up to the speed limit of course) much more rapidly than necessary, then have to apply the brakes as I approach a stop sign or traffic congestion. (He did not quite put it so succinctly.  Actually, it more like this:  

"So how many times a week do you have to fill your car up anyway?"  The rest I will leave to the reader's imagination, but it would not be going too far to imagine a few "duh-uh's" in the course of the discussion.)     

Today, I tried to be conscious of my tendency to try and beat every traffic light and to attempt to maximize the net MPH I can accomplish in my given itinerary. Instead of accelerating to change lanes in the freeway, I hung at close to the speed limit until a spot opened up (it probably took at least 12 seconds more...)  Was it painful?  Well, yes actually it was.  Did it kill me? No. 

So I probably could even do better by leaving earlier and driving slower, but after a lifetime of Type A behavior, that may have to wait for another day...        

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