Host: What are Dr. Roadmap's special tips?

David Rizzo: Several things can help, these all add up cumulatively, in other words you pick up your percentage here and there, but first of all avoid traffic congestion. Easier said than done but this gone along with my theories of beating traffic, commute management because remember if you are in a gas driven car, an internal combustion engine and you are stopped in traffic congestion you are getting zero miles per gallon so put some thought into ways of beating traffic congestion. The other thing is if you are driving and you have got a stick or even an automatic that lets you select your gears, keep it in as high a gear as possible because of that gear ratio your engine will be turning over less, you will be burning less gas. So you want it in 4th, 5th overdrive as opposed to 2nd or 3rd. Yeah, lower gears are peppier and you can dart in and out of traffic but you are paying a price for that, higher gears are better. Another tip is if you have got a lot of junk in your trunk, get rid of it. For every 50 pounds of extra weight let's say it's a set of golf clubs, you loose 1% of your gas efficiency. So any extra junk in your car get rid of it that will improve your miles per gallon.

If you have got luggage rack, ski rack, bike rack on your car and you are not using it, take it off, because that cuts down on the wind or it accelerates the wind resistance. So get those racks off. Lastly in case you are wondering about drafting trucks, we see racers do it, they draft each other, bad idea, yeah you can save gas but you are asking for a crash. Those trucks toss up rocks, debris in your windshield, it can cost you your life, it's not worth drafting trucks.