365 Ways to Save Gas, by Ronald M. Weiers

The Author's Official Website

365 Ways to Save Gas: Everyday Tips to Stretch Your Dollar (published by DK Penguin, 10/2006); 384 pages of useful information, regardless of what you happen to be driving.

Whether you're commuting to work or driving cross-country, in the market for a new car or shopping for new tires, an SUV-driver or a Hybrid-owner, 365 Ways to Save Gas is an inexpensive, timely and informational guide that will help you conserve gas and save money — all while helping out the environment as well.  Provides 365 simple, easy-to-follow tips — one for each day of the year! Shows how to maximize the gas mileage of any vehicle, and gives specific tips for owners of SUVs and Hybrid models. Features buying tips for shoppers in the market for new cars, used cars, and automotive accessories, such as tires and brakes. Includes simple advice on car maintenance — what to do, when to do it, or when to have it done.

Practical Tips, Not Just General Advice!

There’s a lot more to saving gas than just pumping up your tires and obeying the speed limits. While others give you general tips, like “conserve momentum,” 365 Ways to Save Gas takes you to a completely different and useful level – a level that gives you many specific and sometimes unintuitive tips on actually implementing such general advice as conserving momentum. Just a few examples are tip #24 (the 3-second following-distance rule), tip #3 (looking beyond the vehicle immediately ahead), and tip #70 (taking advantage of the pavement weight sensors at traffic signals). Where others would essentially tell their football team to “complete a long pass and score,” 365 Ways to Save Gas is the automotive equivalent of the meticulous coach who provides operational and useful details as to exactly how the receiver will get open, how the passer will trick the defense into thinking a different play is being run, and how the offensive line will protect the passer long enough for the receiver to sprint all the way to the end zone to complete the score. Where others merely give you the job description, 365 Ways to Save Gas gives you the tools!

Driving Efficiently as a Process to be Improved

Driving efficiently is a process, not much unlike any other means by which we build or accomplish something, and the Japanese term “Kaizen” is a word that refers to continual process improvement, even if by small increments. Every time you shift gears, approach an intersection, or make your daily commute, you should try to do so just a little more efficiently than you did the time before. It’s a different mindset, perhaps a bit philosophical, but in these hectic and confusing times many of us could use such a mindset. No matter what activity we perform, if we take it seriously and think a little bit about the process involved, we will be able to perform this process just a little better than we did the last time. This is what 365 Ways to Save Gas is all about. Some of the tips are extremely important, others may be viewed as marginal – but they all take you in the same worthy direction: saving gas, saving money, helping your country toward greater energy independence, and reducing the wear and tear we are placing upon our planet.

Don’t Just Save Gas – Save Lives Too!

Aggressive driving is one of the leading causes of automotive injuries and fatalities. Besides being rude, thoughtless, and dangerous, aggressive driving is also highly inefficient driving. Tailgating, lane-cutting, and racetrack-level speeding are only a few of the aggressive practices that waste energy. The aggressive driver is not only wasting precious fuel and endangering innocent lives, he is making his country even more dependent on nations from which we import the majority of the scarce and expensive oil from which his gasoline is made. Be safe, be efficient, and avoid both aggressive driving and aggressive drivers. Follow the advice in 365 Ways to Save Gas tip #224: just leave home 10 minutes earlier and take it easy along the way.