We all drive with fruitcakes.
They surround us. They cause wrecks. They talk on their cellphones, they text their friends, they apply makeup, they read newspapers, they fumble around on the passenger side’s floor looking for nail polish, they become deeply involved with all sorts of things while they use about 3% of their brain on the fact that they are driving a vehicle 70 miles an hour down a highway.
I do not like fruitcake drivers.
But I have to drive with them, so I have done a longitudinal study that considers the different factors that go into driving and fruitcakeness, specifically related to speed.
First, background: I drive from Springfield, MO to Branson MO, several times a week, because I live in the one and work in the other. For the purpose of this study, I focused on the strip of highway that stretches from the highway 65/60 interchange at the southeast corner of Springfield to the highway 65/248 interchange in Branson. This is a 33.8 mile drive, and I have made it hundreds of times.
For this study, I drove a 2008 Toyota Tacoma with a4 cylinder engine and a 5 speed manual transmission. The air conditioner was not deployed at any time during the test. I chose this vehicle because it was readily available at the beginning of the study. I was going to do the study with a BMW, but there was none available.
Originally, I just wanted to find out how much different speeds affected my gas mileage, but the study became much more comprehensive than that. In addition to MPG, I kept records of how often I was passed at different speeds and how often I passed other people. I also kept careful track of how many times I had to adjust my driving to accommodate a fruitcake; either somebody trapped me behind a truck and I had to slow down, or I had to speed up to avoid getting trapped, or I had to change the route entirely because a particular fruitcake was shooting at me. I referred in my notes to “being caught” if I had to alter my speed significantly. Finally, I paid attention to how I felt as I drove at different speeds-I gave a subjective stress rating (1-5, 1 being unstressed, 5 being quite stressed) to each drive as soon as the drive was over.
I drove at 3 different speeds, each for three weeks. I could not keep a constant speed, because the Tacoma doesn’t have cruise control. Instead, I focused on keeping my speed in a five MPH range. I do not know whether these speeds were accurate or not; for my purposes, this did not matter. For the record, I suspect that my speedometer reads slightly high; if the gauge says I am going 70 MPH, I think that I’m actually going about 67.
The first speed that I drove was 75 MPH, fluctuating between 73 and 78. Objective results: At 75 MPH, I passed other drivers significantly more often than I was passed. I passed an average of 42 cars at this speed, and the most that I was passed was 4 times on one drive, and the least was once, which happened three different times. Two of the cars that passed me I later saw pulled over by the police. I can only assume that they were pulled over for speed.
At this speed, I averaged 23.07 MPG in the Tacoma.
As earlier mentioned, I did not know my actual speed, but I am quite sure that I was going over the limit. I was never pulled over, so receiving a ticket did not factor into stress or finances. However, I was aware that I was “speeding,” for whatever that is worth. Any time I saw a patrol car going in either direction, I slowed down and worried that I had been caught. I did not feel any moral guilt whatsoever, but I did feel a slight twinge of fear that I was going to get caught.
I also had to shift to fourth gear to maintain my speed going up two long hills. For some reason, this slightly raises my stress level.
My stress ratings for these three weeks were 3/5, except for one 4/5, on the trip where I got caught and had to slow down 4 different times.
Two different times, I wrote (1 bad) behind the number of times that I was caught, to signify being caught for more than a minute.
The second speed that I drove was 65, fluctuating below. I tried to never go over 65. Objectively, I was passed over 60 times on average. I passed 4 semis one trip, 2 little old ladies one trip, and a bus.
I never had to change lanes; I just sat in the right lane and tootled along. In fact, I am now formally introducing the word “tootle” into the lexicon of academic language:
Tootle Verb. [tood-l] 1. To meander slowly without stress. 2. To not worry about whether or not you’ll be on time. Tootled, tootling, tootles. Ex: Jeb and Eliza certainly tootled stresslessly across Kansas in their Conestoga wagon druing the great expansion of 1885!
I found that tootling to work had several advantages. First of all, my gas mileage rocketed up from 23.07 at 75mph to 26.06 at 65 MPH That may not seem like much, but you just have to do the math to see what long-term savings you can obtain:
Assume that you drive 100 miles a day (very close to what I drive)
Assume that gas costs $3.00 a gallon (a bit low right now, but times change, and this is just for our estimation)
You can save $54,458.22 if you average 26.06 MPG instead of 23.07! That’s the price of a BMW 5 speed, or a Porsche Boxster! (It will take you 100 years to amass this amount) Start today!
So, back to the study. In addition to saving over $50 grand, I also found that my stress level plummeted. I got passed by everybody, I never got stuck having to slow down or move over, and when I went up the hill, I just left the truck in fifth gear. At the top of the hill, I was only going 55 or so, but I just didn’t care.
How much longer did it take me to tootle? Amazingly, it took me an average of 4 minutes longer. I averaged 28 minutes while driving 75 MPH, and I averaged 32 minutes while driving 65 MPH. So the difference in time is negligible.
Now, here’s the interesting part. When I tried to drive with traffic, everything was in between the two extremes. At 65-70 MPH, my gas mileage was 24.39. It took me right at 30 minutes, average, to make the drive. But my stress level was highest. This was caused by going with the flow of the traffic. It means that I was passing and being passed about equally, which is stressful. I was caught repeatedly, over 4 times a drive, on average, and so I had to either speed up a bit or slow down a bit. It takes a long time to pass somebody when going 65-70, because the other person is only going slightly slower. So traffic builds up behind me while I’m passing. Then, people will cut around and pass me on the right if I don’t get over quickly enough. This is stressful. Sometimes, they will make hand gestures to indicate their feelings about me. This is stressful. Sometimes, they will also shout orders to me, telling me to do certain impossible and immoral things to myself. This also is stressful. I regularly came up on a semi, and wanted to pass, but was unable, because other cars were passing, so I had to slow down and wait. This is stressful. Waiting behind a semi also means that the semi will occasionally spray rocks or small dead birds at my windshield. This is stressful. On highway 65, the common speed is between 65 and 70 MPH. I was going with the traffic here, and it was the worst.
So, if you’ve been told that you should just drive with the traffic, you’ve been told wrong. What you really should do is either drive significantly faster or slower than most of the traffic. If I wasn’t worried about attracting the attention of the local gendarmes, I would drive 90, I would pass everybody, and I would and be completely stress free. It would take me 23 minutes to make the drive. It would be more fun. If I had my Porsche, I’d do it in 120, and get there and it would take 17 minutes. It would be lots of fun.
The police have ruined everything.
I am sure that they will not allow me to drive at this significantly safer and stress free velocity, so I am instead choosing to drive even slower. I am currently driving only 60 MPH, and seeing what that’s like. I don’t have enough information to make any sure judgements, but I can tell you that the stress level is quite low. 60 MPH, when everybody else is going 65-70, is the essence of tootling. I never pass anybody. Semis pass me. Semis pass me going uphill. Old ladies in mid eighties Cadillacs pass me. Old ladies with walkers by the side of the road pass me. I’m amassing a large pile of cash from my improved gas mileage. I don’t know what kind of gas mileage I’m getting, but it has to be good. Perhaps I’ll slow down to 45 or so, and amass a million or so dollars. If I slow down to 30, I can amass a billion. If I slow down to 20, I can amass a trillion. I am seriously considering slowling down to zero, and then I will amass an infinite number of dollars. I already did the math, you don’t need to. And when I amass an infinite number of dollars, you will come begging me for a loan, and I’ll say no. First of all, I don’t want to run out, and second of all, slow down and amass your own infinite money.
It’s all good.
