Drivers are often unconsciously influenced by the speed of the other cars around them, which can lead to speed creep. "When a faster car passes you, you have a tendency to speed up. Soon, even though you were committed to going 70, you're going 80," says Reed. "In some cases, cars are so well insulated it's easy to go fast without realizing it." A good way to avoid that pitfall: Use the cruise control on the freeway, which will also help you avoid the temptation to constantly dart forward when you see an opening in traffic up ahead.
Any time you hear the engine revving high you're gulping fuel. If you drive a stick shift, and you're cruising along in third, shift to fourth, and hear the revs of the engine drop. Your car is the most inefficient when the engine is still warming up, so taking fewer trips by combining errands into one trip will save gas. Drive to your farthest destination, and then do the errands closer to home on the way back. When choosing your route, avoid hills if possible, so you won't be wasting energy hauling thousands of pounds of steel up an incline.
If you've got 57 books in your trunk that you keep meaning to donate to the library, but never get around to doing, try this experiment: "Take all that stuff out, and put it in a wheelbarrow, and push it up and down the driveway once, and you'll see how much energy it takes," says Wayne Gerdes. Gerdes invented the term "hypermiler" to describe the obsessive drivers like him who strive to wring every last mile out of a gallon of gas, exceeding the EPA's estimate of how far a car can go per gallon.
The more weight your car has to carry the harder it works, even though the overall gas savings are small, about 1 to 2 percent per 100 excess pounds eliminated, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Reed at Edmunds doesn't worry too much about excess weight in the trunk, since he believes this tip was crafted back in the 1970s when New Englanders would keep 150-pound bags of sand in their trunks in hopes of getting better traction in the ice and snow in winter.
Avoiding excessive idling is also a must. Anytime you're idling for more than 15 seconds, such as at a railroad crossing or when waiting curbside to pick up your child from school, turn off your engine, advises Fons, who co-founded the Milwaukee Hybrid Group, which gives tips on what he calls eco-driving. The bigger your engine, the more fuel you typically waste idling. But whatever car you have, when it's idling it gets -- duh! -- zero miles per gallon. Idling is one of those bad habits that die hard. "Cars used to be hard to start. Oil was cheap, and we didn't care about global warming," says Reed. "These days cars are fuel injected."
Keeping your car tuned up can also bring some gas mileage improvements. Keeping tires properly inflated and frequently changing the air filter are the two biggies. "Gasoline is only one of the fuels the car burns," explains Reed. "The other is oxygen, so feeding it with clean oxygen is very important."
If you really get into saving gas, you can invest in a scan gauge, which costs about $170. It will inform you in real time what miles per gallon your car is getting. (Hybrids already come equipped with them.) Gerdes, who says he once got 127 mpg (over the course of 90 miles) in a 2004 Toyota Prius, believes drivers can realize a 15 percent savings on fuel overnight by buying and heeding a gauge.
It used to be said that driving with the air conditioner on was a big fuel waster. But in all but the oldest jalopies with primitive air conditioners, that turns out to be an old wives' tale. "The air conditioners that we have now are highly efficient," says Reed from Edmunds. "Yes, they do take more power from the engine, but we're talking about 1 or 2 percent." The alternative of driving with the air conditioner off and the windows open doesn't offer a significant gain in gas mileage. On the contrary, when Edmunds conducted road tests to measure whether the altered aerodynamics of driving with the windows open impacted gas mileage, they noticed a decline in fuel economy if all the windows and the sunroof were open.
Driving experts say there's no need to wait for years to benefit from the new fuel-efficiency law. We can see major gas savings now simply by backing off the accelerator and brakes. "Everybody and anybody can do this no matter what they own and drive," says Gerdes. With practice, you, too, can become a hypermiler, and soon be shaming your lead-foot neighbors with your superior miles per gallon.
About the writer
Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior writer for Salon.
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