Drive 55, save gas -- get flipped off / Trip shows slowing down boosts mileage but can make you unpopular on the road

On the Road. Chronicle graphic by Gus D'Angelo On the Road. Chronicle graphic by Gus D'Angelo Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Drive 55, save gas -- get flipped off / Trip shows slowing down boosts mileage but can make you unpopular on the road 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

With gas prices hovering around $3 a gallon, a lot of people say they're making big sacrifices so they can afford to fill their gas tanks. They're cutting back on travel, curtailing shopping expeditions, going out less often.

But hardly anyone is talking about -- or practicing -- a surefire way to save on gas: Slow down. Drive 55.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" said Tim Castleman, a Sacramento Web site developer who runs the Drive 55 Conservation Project. "People just don't want to do it. It's hard."

How hard? The drawbacks aren't measured just in terms of minutes lost. There's the feeling of inadequacy that comes from being flipped off by a 12-year-old boy in another car. From being tailgated by little old ladies and pickup trucks piled high with furniture. From being passed by 830 vehicles, including an AC Transit bus, on a drive from the Bay Area to deep into the San Joaquin Valley. "Is that all?" said Officer Mike Panelli of the California Highway Patrol. "It must have been a slow-traffic day."

Traffic was a bit light when The Chronicle decided to take a 2001 Chevrolet Malibu for a 200-mile spin from Emeryville to the dusty Interstate 5 stopover of Kettleman City -- sticking to 55 mph on the way down and going with the flow of traffic on the way back.

The idea was to test just how much better the six-cylinder Malibu (EPA-estimated highway mileage: 29 miles per gallon) could do at a speed imposed on the nation's freeway drivers as a fuel-saving measure during the Arab oil embargo of the mid-1970s.

The limit became increasingly unpopular and was repealed in 1995. Now you can do 65 mph on most of Interstate 580 in the East Bay all the way down to I-5, where 70 mph is the rule and 80 mph a common practice.

But as a gas-saving device, 55 mph still works. The Malibu got 35 mpg on the way down to Kettleman City; coming back from the Kings County settlement of fast-food restaurants and gas stations at the flow of traffic, a bit over 70 mph, the mileage dropped sharply -- to 25 mpg.

"That's pretty significant," said Sean Comey, spokesman for AAA of Northern California. "More than I would have expected."

For every mile per hour faster than 55 mph, fuel economy drops by about 1 percent, said Jason Mark, clean vehicles program director for the Union of Concerned Scientists. The drop-off increases at a greater rate after 65 mph. The faster you go, the faster the fuel goes.

There are costs the slower you go, however. It took 49 minutes longer to make the trip at 55 mph -- three hours and 36 minutes total -- but it seemed like forever. Sitting in the slow lane, tapping the gas pedal to maintain a steady speed, the car felt like it was traveling at 25. Everything from Porsches and BMWs to big-rigs, the AC Transit bus and pickups towing boats -- and they're supposed to keep their speeds under 55 -- cruised past in the left lane.

A lot of drivers cast curious glances at The Chronicle's Malibu, and a woman in a black Volvo station wagon with three kids in the back seat glared. One person -- a preteen boy in the passenger seat of a Dodge Stratus -- made an obscene gesture, raising both middle fingers somewhere in Merced County.

A handful of drivers came within a few inches of the rear bumper before jerking their cars into the fast lane and flying by, but most simply passed. Actually, everybody passed sooner or later. The 830 cars and trucks that went by the Malibu as it poked along at 55 mph was nearly 10 times the number that passed on the speedier trip home.

Officer Panelli said the CHP sees very few drivers cruising I-5 at 55. It's not illegal, however -- there's no minimum speed limit on that stretch of road, and the Vehicle Code says only: "No person shall drive upon a highway at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic."

"If you're doing 55 in the right lane," Panelli said, "you're probably OK. It wouldn't be like you're the only one out there going that slow, since trucks and cars towing trailers have a 55 speed limit."

Most motorists wouldn't dare try it, however. "You want to go with the flow," said Jihadda Govan of Delano, who was taking I-5 back from a wedding in Humboldt County. "You feel like a hazard doing 55 when everyone else is going between 70 and 90."

Comey said that even though the AAA encourages motorists to conserve fuel by lifting the right foot off the gas pedal, he would worry about going 55 on the wide-open highway.

"You wouldn't want to sacrifice safety for fuel economy," he said. "If you're driving 55, and the ambient traffic speed is much higher, you could be putting yourself in danger because the other drivers might not be paying attention and might crash into you."

But Panelli said he wouldn't classify 55 as an unsafe speed.

"I've never (responded to) a collision that occurred where someone said, 'This guy was driving 55 so I crashed into him,' " he said. "Usually, the cause is the opposite. Someone's driving too fast."

Many motorists said time was more important than money.

"We're coming from Seattle," said Hugh Lee, a content provider for an Internet music service, bound for West Los Angeles with his friend, Leah Clarin, a Nordstrom merchandiser. "So we just want to get to our destination as fast as we can."

Seth Springer, an Oakland special-education teacher heading for the Grand Canyon in a Toyota Prius hybrid, said he was keeping a close watch on his mileage, which is recalculated and displayed on the dashboard display every five minutes. It was at 44 mpg, a bit better than the 42 he usually gets commuting to work in Hayward. He was trying to keep down his speed, he said, but wasn't too worried about the effect on mileage.

"In a Prius, you don't have to feel guilty," he said.

Despite the significant fuel savings, there's been no hue and cry to reinstate the national 55-mph speed limit. Castleman, who formed the Drive 55 Conservation Project as a way to lessen dependence on foreign oil after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said he's had trouble getting any politicians -- even his own state representatives -- to consider the idea.

"The 55 mph speed limit is not a number we're stuck on," he said. "I'd be willing to go to 60.

"The idea is to get people to slow down (and develop) an attitude of conservation," Castleman said.

That makes sense to Mark, who said the savings can add up by slowing down even on short trips. He figures that a commuter making a 30-mile drive to work at 65 mph instead of 75 mph would save about 30 cents in fuel costs per day -- or $150 a year -- and spend just 3 1/2 minutes more daily on the road.

"When we're talking about changing driving habits, we're not talking about driving like your grandmother," Mark said. "We're talking about just easing off the gas pedal a bit."

ON THE ROAD

With gas prices soaring and people searching for ways to reduce their energy costs, Chronicle reporter Michael Cabanatuan explored an old solution -- slowing down. He drove from Emeryville to Kettleman City at 55 mph, then drove back at 70 mph and compared his gas mileage on the two trips.

Emeryville to Kettleman City

55.6 mph, 35 mpg

Gas consumed: 5.7 gallons

Travel time: 3 hours 36 minutes

Cost of gas: $17.04 ($2.99/gallon)

Number of vehicles that passed driver: 830

Kettleman City back to Emeryville

70.8 mph, 25 mpg

Gas consumed: 7.8 gallons

Travel time: 2 hours 47 minutes

Cost of gas: $22.23 ($2.85/gallon)

Number of vehicles that passed driver: 94