Zen and the art of not stopping at red
Stopping at red lights is bad for the environment. I don’t do it if I can help it. I once travelled the entire thirty miles home from central London without stopping once.
Naturally, ‘zenning’ all the red lights helps to an extent but most of the work is done by my anticipating the traffic conditions. I mention this because I got a wide range of feedback from my piece on traffic congestion and the environment in The Times this week and I want explain it in more detail. The main reason that congestion is detrimental to the environment is because it means stopping and starting or at least slowing down and speeding up uses up energy. Energy in cars usually means burning fossils fuels.
Think about it. If an object is travelling through space at twenty miles an hour it will carry on going that speed for ever (unless it hits something or is pulled by the gravity of a passing star). But cars have to travel through the atmosphere so the air will slow them down. Even in a vacuum the car has rolling resistance which will eventually bring it to a halt. The energy required to move from stationary to 1mph is far greater than moving from 1mph to 2mph. So once you get going you should never stop – not even for red lights.
Do not expect success on your first journey – it has taken me many years to master not stopping – but each time you find yourself being stationary ask yourself: Could I have anticipated this earlier?
It’s great fun and saves pounds off your fuel bill.
Previous article: Food miles (Friday, 16th May, 2008)
saving energy by not stopping
I save fuel by slipping into neutral and freewheeling wherever possible. On one local journey I do, I can be in neutral for almost half the journey. In an unscientific test I compared mileage of a tank full of petrol when driving with freewheeling, and another driven without freewheeling. The result? An estimated saving of 10% on fuel use.
I have learned how far before traffic lights and roundabouts I can slip out of gear in order to still arrive just behind the car in front (ie not delaying myself or anyone behind me). And one slightly eccentric result of my practice is that I sometimes go slower down hills than up, as I freewheel until I'm going slower than I would drive if I were in gear. The A30 through North Cornwall offers a good example of this - long hills that I accelerated up, then long hills down that I could freewheel a mile at a time down.
I enjoy the feeling that I've probably saved myself about 3p (and the resulting emissions) every time I freewheel approaching half a mile.