Fuel Economy Thief - Red Lights

There is one thing in the U.S. that probably robs more fuel economy from cars than anything else, red lights. It is a factor that is completely ignored by all. That is something I don't understand.

Think about how much gas you waste a day waiting for red lights to turn green. When you are sitting at a red light, your car is running and you are not moving. You are getting zero miles per gallon for the entire time you are sitting still.

Let's look at how much time you might spend idling at red light. I know it will be different for everyone, depending upon where they live and how much traffic their region has and how much travel is on freeways but let's make some assumptions just to get an idea about how much gas we are wasting.

Assume you have a 30 minute commute to work. Let's also assume that you spend 5 minutes waiting for lights during the 30 minutes. I think that as a rule that number may be low, but we can use it for this example.

Of course you would do the same on your way home. Let's also assume that you work 7 days a week just to make it easy. Normally you would be spending more time waiting for lights on weekends as you did errands and shopping, but we can ignore that just for the sake of simplicity.

10 minutes a day for 365 days would be 3650 minutes. That amounts to approximately 61 hours of idling. 61 hours is the equivalent of two and a half days of idling. Can you imagine letting your car idle for two and a half days? If your commute was more in line with spending 10 minutes each way then it would be like letting your car sit and idle for 5 straight days. No wonder the actual fuel economy numbers on the cars we drive are so low.

In New York state alone, there are 11 million drivers. If each wasted 10 minutes per day waiting at lights, that would be the equivalent of close to 28 million days of nothing but idling. The amount of gas wasted idling is mind boggling. The worst part is no one says or does anything about it.

How many times do you find yourself sitting at a red light and there are no cars coming across the intersection. It happens to me a lot. There are some simple solutions and some complicated ones that our governments could do to lessen the wait time at lights and thus reduce the amount of fuel that is wasted day in and day out.

The first thing is every light should have car sensors. If there is no traffic coming in the cross direction then the light should not have to turn red. No more waiting for lights when there is no traffic!

On the more complicated side, but I'm sure with the computing power available these days very possible, would be more coordination of lights. How many times has a light turned green just in time for the next light to turn red. You end up waiting for light after light.

Why can't a computerized system of lights be set up that enables traffic to flow with the minimum number of stops instead of constant stopping and starting.

How much gas could we save just fixing the red light system in this country? I'm sure it would be an enormous amount. Not only would it significantly cut the overall fuel use in this country, it would go a long way towards helping the environment.

Scott Siegel is the author of a 143 page manual of industry insider information on saving gas and money at the pump. Visit us to learn how you can get better gas mileage. Find out how to increase gas mileage

By Scott Siegel