On 3/1/2010 2:46 PM, Edward A. Falk wrote:
In ,
wrote:

wrote in message
...
hard
braking) wastes gas.


Never seen gas powered brakes.

Every joule of heat energy dissipated by the brakes represents wasted
energy that originally came from gasoline. A better approach is to take
your foot off the gas as you approach a stop.

In a sense, hard braking doesn't waste gas -- it's an indicator that
you've *already* wasted the gas.

So let's see, I've coasted down a long hill and I brake slowly at the
bottom or I brake hard but later at the bottom, what does doing the
latter have to do with "wasting gas"?

I've cruised 100 miles on the interstate, at the speed limit, and I hit
the brakes hard to avoid hitting a
dog/moose/deer/one-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater that ran
into the road in front of me. How does that indicate that I have
"already wasted the gas"?

Or I'm coming to a stop sign and I brake hard shortly before I reach the
stopping point vs less hard over a longer distance, how does that
indicate that I have "already wasted the gas"?

Yeah, one might save a _tiny_ amount by getting off the gas 20 feet
sooner--at 15 mpg doing that would perhaps save .000025 gallon. So to
save a single gallon I have to do it about 4000 times. So let's see, on
my regular commute there are about 25 stops, so that would save me 2
gallons a year. Except that I usually commute that distance in a
vehicle that gets 45 mpg, so that would save me about 3/4 gallon a year.
And that assumes getting off the gas completely stopped fuel
consumption, which it doesn't.

Sorry, but while the driving habits that lead to habitual hard braking
may also lead to suboptimal fuel consumption hard braking per se doesn't
indicate anything much about "wasting gas".