Easing up on the pedal and paying full attention cuts fuel consumption by about $400 per year

Special to the Star

I have a new name in our household: Lady Lightfoot.

I acquired it by beating out journalists from three other publications in a fuel economy competition put together last weekend by Honda.

We each had to drive an Accord, equipped with a 2.4 L four-cylinder engine and a five-speed automatic transmission, from Markham to Bent River, north of Bracebridge – 248 km. My final tally, a whisker ahead of the second-place Toronto Sun, was 6.8 L/100 km.

That's damn good compared with the midsize sedan's official combined rating of 8.3 L/100 km, and which proves my theory that it isn't just what you drive, but how you drive it that will determine how much you spend at the pumps.

The trick – besides keeping the gotta-get-there Designated Passenger's size 12 shoe off the throttle – was to really pay attention to what I was doing. I won't lie: it takes constant vigilance, and it can get monotonous on a longer drive. But you concentrate when earning your money; why not concentrate on saving it?

So I took off with that imaginary egg under the pedal, gradually getting up to speed, instead of clipping off from the stoplight and then levelling out. I paid attention to upcoming traffic lights, and if it looked like a red light was close to turning green, I slowed down so I could get through without having to come to a stop first.

If I was between hills, and it was safe to do so, I'd let the car pick up some speed on the way down, and use that to help me get back up the other side, rather than braking on the way down and then accelerating hard on the way up.

I hadn't thought to pack my tire pressure gauge, but if I had, I'd have checked the tires first. Under-inflated rubber uses more fuel and, according to the Rubber Association of Canada, more than two-thirds of cars have at least one or more tires missing some air.

I also paid as much attention to the tach as I did to the speedometer, trying to keep the revs as low as possible.

Try it next time you're on a straight stretch, like a highway: once you reach your cruising speed, try backing off ever so slightly on the throttle. You'll find that you can usually shave off a few rpms without slowing down.

By keeping an eye on the tach and driving proactively for inclines and traffic, especially in a hilly area, you can often do better mileage-wise than if you just left the cruise control on.

And if you're the type who drives like the throttle's a seesaw – on the gas, coast, on the gas, coast – stop it right now. Not only does it waste fuel, but you're really annoying your passengers.

Your acceleration should be smooth and linear, and once you're at your desired speed, you should only need to make minute adjustments to the throttle to stay there.

Now, before you say it, I know what you're thinking: yes, it was easier to do all of those things on the empty backroads of cottage country, instead of trying to gently climb a hill with a line of tractor-trailers on my bumper.

But once you get the hang of it, it's easy to start smoothly away from lights without holding anyone up, and to maintain a constant speed.

And it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Even if you have to mash the throttle the odd time to keep up with traffic, you can still practise your techniques in other areas.

For comparison, I drove home the way many drivers do. I took off sharply from lights, drove 10 to 20 km over the speed limit, accelerated hard up hills, and didn't try to keep an even speed.

Despite having far more downhill stretches than on my first route, I averaged 8.4 L/100 km, against my initial 6.8 figure.

Given that gas was priced at $1.27 that day, that's an extra $2.03 every 100 km. Now, multiply that by the 20,000 km or so that the average car travels in a year, and it really adds up ($406).

Nothing drives consumer preference the way the economy does, and after many years of automakers selling us on minivans, SUVs and crossovers, expect them to change their tune and bring the family sedan back to the forefront. (I'd love to see the lowly station wagon near the top of the charts again, too, but I guess that's too much to ask.)

The fact that four-cylinders are now decent performers, instead of the noisy, gutless wonders they used to be, will probably drive this segment even further.

But the final number in the equation, of course, is then driving that four-cylinder to its maximum potential.

Toronto Star