Drafting techniques/strategies

Most folks here in Spokane Valley take the freeway to get into Spokane proper. I took it a few times at first, but I never take it any more. The regular street route is a little bit shorter, and even driving "normally" I get much better mileage on the city streets than on the freeway. If I drive gently, the difference is even greater.

However, for a long road trip I'll take the freeway. An extra 5 or 10 minutes to get to downtown is one thing. An additional 2.5 hours for a drive across the state (7.5 instead of 5) is another matter altogether.

 

Two things. One, the slower you drive, the less wind resistance so driving five miles per hour slower than posted speed limit is better than drafting anyway. Two, the closer you get to vehicles in front of you, the more your paint job will suffer due to gravel or other road crud being kicked back at you from their tires.

Truck drivers and bicyclists draft but they do it with mutual benefit in mind. They take turns being in the front so that no one has to take the brunt of the wind resistance all of the time. If you're drafting behind a much larger vehicle, he's not getting anything out of the deal unless you were to approach him at a rest stop beforehand and offer to pay for his next meal down the road in exchange for being able to draft behind him.

 

Hey Daniel, you moved! I saw lots of your cat avatars in the mosaic and wondered how you are. I've not had much time to play in PC for months, you probably moved ages ago.

As for drafting, I'm with the majority here: ANYTHING from behind.

 

Drafting: I wouldn't do it. Like others have said, you would have to get too close for there to be a noticeable affect on mileage. I stay as far away from big rigs as I can. Just look at the blind spots for the driver in one of those things:

[Broken External Image]:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/rancid13/blindspots.jpg

 

I once got behind a big rig doing about 65 mph and got within about 20' for a while. I noticed about a 10mpg boost in mileage on a flat area. You could really feel the difference, it felt like the car was being pulled forward by the truck.


A much better option would be to get really close to the side of the truck and lasso its bumper with a tow rope and then drop back say about 100' and let him just pull you. You would probably get better than 100 mpg

 

My advice is DON'T DO IT!!

Drafting is something that can improve your mileage if your driving some vehicle with a slab front-end like a HUMMER or other SUV. But then if you were driving a HUMMER you really aren't too worried about mileage, ARE YOU? (You may have other issues you are trying to cope with based on the need to drive a HUMMER/SUV but it isn't mileage.)

With the Prius there would be little to gain by drafting and to have some effect you would likely have to park in the guy's trunk. The Prius just move through the air too smoothly to gain much from drafting. In fact, because of the way in which air flows off the rear of the car/truck ahead of you it might cause instability in the front-end.

And, or course, it's illegal. (Not that I haven't done it in my younger days when I was in college and thought I was immortal.)

Of course... it's just my opinion.