I suggest that in this situation the driver who doesn’t want to steam up to the red light at 45 mph and then jam on his brakes is not crusading in order to compel you to do anything, and should not himself feel compelled to drive in a gas-wasting fashion.
Speaking of which, coming off the gas when nearing a red light in itself might well amount to only pennies saved on the cost of a tank. But combining that with other gas-saving strategies (and with the knowledge that we’re going to refill that tank many many times) does add up over time.
It’s not just gas that’s saved. Brake pads, rotors and drums wear much faster when one speeds up to stop lights. I put 98,000 miles on my last car without wearing out the pads or shoes. They still have life left in them, as my daughter’s driving it now. Can you stoplight racers say the same?
This is definitely why I would make sure I got ahead of the OP if I could. It’s usually a winning strategy, and I often see the slow-ass driver I passed before the light still going 20mph under the speed limit three minutes later far, far in the distance, being cursed by the people who didn’t manage to get ahead of him.
New Hampshire must be an odd place. All I can say is that around here, nobody goes under the speed limit as a standard thing. I mean, sure, there might be the odd geriatric who’s passed out at the wheel, but they’re not common enough to base a driving strategy off of.
You know it is. The biggest problem is that you can go 20 miles with a single lane in each direction with no passing zones, so one person going significantly under the speed limit can make dozens of other drivers late for work in the morning. People in MA don’t seem to appreciate the luxury they so often experience of having two or even three lanes of travel in each direction. I can only imagine how much faster my commute would be if there were multiple lanes for the whole distance, not just 5 miles out of 30.
Just to make sure you’re not putting words in my mouth, I do not “steam up to the red light at 45 mph and then jam on [my] brakes.” I use a normal braking distance and reasonable deceleration. Frankly I would rather spend 15 seconds sitting at the red light instead of crawling along behind someone for 15 seconds as they approach it at 5 MPH. If someone truly thinks they are going to save a significant amount of money doing this, kudos to them, and they have every right to do it. By the same token if there is nobody in front of me, I also can approach the way I want to, which is my response to the OP–I’m not trying to race you, it’s just the way I drive. I probably have 10 times more brake wear and wasted gas from daily Beltway stop-and-go traffic than I do stopping at a few red lights, so cost efficiency is just not an issue for me.
I drive an EV now, so yes. I can use regeneration to slow down at a normal rate but without touching the brakes, and recovering almost all the kinetic energy. Coasting isn’t actually possible in a normal way; to simulate coasting I’d have to veeeery slowly let off the accelerator. There’s no advantage to that.
The only non-trivial energy savings is from air drag–going at 45 mph between lights takes more energy than, say, 25 mph. But it’s still pretty insignificant.
I’m still trying to decide what’s meant by approaching red lights slowly. I myself tend not to literally coast to a stop - but if I know I’m going to have to stop I’ll start decelerating a fair ways off as compared to the people who like doing the entire deceleration within a car length, slamming everything in the car into the surface in front of it. I guess a good way to put is if my groceries fly off the passenger seat into the footspace it’s a sharper stop than I like.
As for stopsigns, I smoothly decelerate to a stop in the same not-smashing-the-eggs way, and then (if it’s clear) instantly take off again, since I’ve had sufficient time to check out the cross-traffic as I smoothly stopped.
(The takeoff might be a bit less instant if I notice a cop nearby - not too long ago I got a goddamned $70 ticket for “running a stopsign”. What bullshit. :mad:)
Hard to quantify since there is a spectrum, but let’s try.
One UK government brochure says that braking distance needed at 40 MPH is 78 feet in a stop to avoid a road hazard (this is only braking time; does not include driver reaction time). So let’s say this is a hard stop. I would say 100 feet is a normal stop and anything over 150 is slow. In my state (and four others where I have had driver’s licenses), you are required to signal a turn at least 100 feet in advance, so that is a pretty good heuristic for being able to come to stop without the groceries hitting the windshield.
Cops sit there and watch your wheels. If they don’t stop turning completely, it’s ticket time! My brother and sister both run stop signs this way. They, too, will pay some day!
ETA- this was drilled into us in public school driver’s ed. Many states no longer have driver’s ed, and this is a bad thing. It could save lives. Here in Georgia, it was discontinued back in '85 or so. Traffic deaths started to increase almost immediately.
Fifteen seconds at a complete stop at a red light is fifteen seconds where I do not have to be paying attention to what anyone else is doing. I can sing or pick my nose or look around without having to be on the alert. The same fifteen seconds following a creepy coaster is fifteen seconds where I have to worry about what ELSE that idiot might do–panic at a imaginary squirrel and jam on the brakes? Drift into oncoming traffic so I’ll have to avoid a crash? Start throwing things out the window? They’ve already proven they don’t have a grasp of driving in an efficient manner nor any awareness of others on the road with them, so as a defensive driver I have to assume they could basically do any numbskull thing imaginable. This is not conducive to calm on my part. Just get up to the goddamned light like regular people and stop so everyone knows you’re not a wild card on the road.
And I always do–except for that blessed amount of time that I’m stopped at a red light and can’t do a damned thing about anyone else on the road because I have no room to maneuver. So creepy coasters need to stop getting in the way of my chill break.
There is no strategy of which I am aware that allows me to go thru a stop sign without stopping, as there is to go thru a traffic signal without stopping (sometimes). So I don’t see why people who try to coast up to traffic lights would approach a stop sign any differently than those who don’t. I am going to have to stop anyway, so “hurry up and wait” isn’t as much a factor.
There’s only one stop sign that I go thru regularly, and it’s less than half a block from the left turn I make to get out of my subdivision, so acceleration isn’t practically possible. The speed limit in my subdivision is 25mph. So it’s nearly always pull out of the driveway, go two blocks to the exit out of my subdivision, turn left and go 50 meters or so, and stop at the stop sign and look to pull out into the main artery thru my town. Then it’s all traffic lights until the freeway.
No, it’s an uncertain amount of time where you should be watching the light and the cross traffic so when the light turns green, you can go as quickly as is safely possible. It’s not a chance to start texting or to take a nap. If you need a break from paying attention to what’s happening on the road, you should park.
Entirely different strategy. I maintain whatever safe speed is appropriate for the area. This is likely a little above the speed limit. I aim to start braking at whatever point my normal rate of uniform braking will result in me completely stopping before the stop sign/stop line/crosswalk/intersection as appropriate. If the intersection is clear, I get back up to my intended speed pretty damn quickly. I don’t roll through stop signs. If there is another car at the stop sign, I try to proceed based on right of way. but I also read what the other person is doing (rolling through a right turn? not stopping at all?) and proceed accordingly.