Projo Cars Blog

There is no question about it: if you want to save gas (and money), slow down.

That’s the overriding advice on all the Web sites I went to while researching a piece for Saturday’s projoCars section on practical solutions to high gas prices.

But driving slower is not so simple as it sounds because it requires a radical change in one’s attitude toward time.

Most of us are hopeless managers of time. And that’s an odd thing when you think about it, because time and energy are about all we get on this good earth. (Think of money as an abstract form of time and energy.)

As a journalist, it has been my privilege to meet people from all walks of life and I have found that successful people tend to be great time managers. Their offices are neat, their affairs ordered.

The rest of us bumble along, lurching from one apparent crisis to another. I say apparent because all too often the crisis is more in the line of getting the kids to school, paying the bills, buying the groceries, doing the washing, organizing the family holiday, worrying about gas prices … well, the list goes on and on. And on.

The net result is that most of us are often in a hurry. And when you are in a hurry, it’s mighty hard to cruise along in the middle lane at a steady 65 mph. Cruising along is the last thing on our minds.

But if we want to save gas (and money) by developing good driving habits, they start long before we get in the car or truck. They start with an entirely new perspective toward time and making better use of it. And that may not be a bad thing at all.

- Peter C.T. Elsworth

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