Divvy My Ride Blog

I saw this in the NY Times captioned “Young boys collected plastic bottles from a polluted river in Jakarta, Indonesia”.  The sad truth is that this picture is not unique to Indonesia, every lake, every river in India at one stage of its life looks as ugly as this picture. It is depressing, it is disheartening; what mother nature took 4.5billion years to create, we have annihilated in just 60-70 years. This is what we intend to pass-on to the generations to come?

“Mr. Bush, Lead or leave”
“It’s as if our addict-in-chief is saying to us: “C’mon guys, you know you want a little more of the good stuff. One more hit, baby. Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe. I promise, next year, we’ll all go straight. I’ll even put a wind turbine on my presidential library. But for now, give me one more pop from that drill, please, baby. Just one more transfusion of that sweet offshore crude.”…
“This from a president who for six years resisted any pressure on Detroit to seriously improve mileage standards on its gas guzzlers; this from a president who’s done nothing to encourage conservation; this from a president who has so neutered the Environmental Protection Agency that the head of the E.P.A. today seems to be in a witness-protection program. I bet there aren’t 12 readers of this newspaper who could tell you his name or identify him in a police lineup”

Some things, like renal physiology, are difficult. Some things, like Arab-Israeli peace, are impossible. And some things are preternaturally simple. You want more fuel-efficient cars? Don’t regulate. Don’t mandate. Don’t scold. Don’t appeal to the better angels of our nature. Do one thing: Hike the cost of gas until you find the price point.

Unfortunately, instead of hiking the price ourselves by means of a gasoline tax that could be instantly refunded to the American people in the form of lower payroll taxes, we let the Saudis, Venezuelans, Russians and Iranians do the taxing for us — and pocket the money that the tax would have recycled back to the American worker.

This is insanity. For 25 years and with utter futility (starting with “The Oil-Bust Panic,” the New Republic, February 1983), I have been advocating the cure: a U.S. energy tax as a way to curtail consumption and keep the money at home. On this page in May 2004 (and again in November 2005), I called for “the government — through a tax — to establish a new floor for gasoline,” by fully taxing any drop in price below a certain benchmark. The point was to suppress demand and to keep the savings (from any subsequent world price drop) at home in the U.S. Treasury rather than going abroad. At the time, oil was $41 a barrel. It is now $123.

Read more in this Washington Post article by Charles Krauthammer
At $4, Everybody Gets Rational

From the Boston Globe a great article on Myths and Facts about gas saving

Read more: http://www.boston.com/business/personalfinance/gallery/fueleconomymyths/

Gas-saving tips – fact or fiction?

Gas prices got you down?

At roughly $4 a gallon, many people are desperately trying to squeeze more miles out of each drop. The best ways are usually the most obvious: reduce your load, resist the urge to drive aggressively, and cut the number of trips you make, for starters. However, there are some unusual tips that might surprise you.

Short quiz, from the Boston Globe : find out which tips are true energy savers and which are merely gas station myths.

fill up when it’s cool

The claim: During warm weather, it’s best to refuel in the early morning or late evening, when temperatures have dipped, because gas will be denser. The denser the gas, the better your fuel mileage.
False. Both Consumer Reports and Popular Mechanics have ruled this rumor false. Modern pumps are temperature-compensated to regulate fuel density, according to Popular Mechanics. Even if they weren’t, gas temperatures typically remain stable all day, Consumer Reports writes, rendering the advantage of going out of your way to pump at a certain time negligible.

Air conditioning vs. open windows

The scenario: It’s the dead of summer, and you’re driving on the highway. With gas prices north of $4, however, you choose not to run the air conditioning because of the strain it will place on your gas tank. Driving with the windows open will help you conserve gas.
False. In this scenario, this line of logic would be false. There would be no savings from turning off the air conditioning because opening the windows would create drag, reducing the car’s normal gas mileage. Consumer Reports tested the theory while driving a Toyota Camry at 65 miles per hour, and found that choosing air or windows didn’t make a justifiable difference. That’s not to say that air conditioning is always the best option. The Department of Energy’s website suggests that turning off the air conditioner may improve fuel economy when driving at speeds under 40 mph.

to idle, or not

The claim: If you need to run into your house to grab something, or if you’re sitting in traffic for even a minute, it’s best to turn off your car. It’s more fuel efficient to restart the car than to leave the engine idling.
True. This one is true. Some might believe that restarting the car’s engine wastes more fuel than letting it run, but modern fuel-injection technology allows already-warm engines to restart without burning gas, according to Popular Mechanics. Idling, however, can waste fuel.

Avoid filling up when you see a fuel truck

The claim: If you pull up to a gas station that is receiving a fuel delivery, don’t use the pumps. The delivery stirs up sediment in the station’s tank that could be pumped into your tank. Dirty fuel will hurt your gas mileage.
False. While a fuel delivery may stir up sediment that gathers in a station tank, both the gas station and the car have filters that will prevent sand or dirt from affecting your car’s performance.

It’s somewhat of a hold over fear dating back to when gas tanks were made of metal rather than fiberglass, said John Paul, AAA’s Car Doctor, in an interview. Stations regularly test their fuel supply for quality, he said.
“If you’re on ‘E,’ and the low fuel light’s on, and the only station around is the one with the tanker, go, and get the gas,” Paul said.

Best day of the week

The claim: Tuesday — or maybe you’ve heard Wednesday? — is the best day of the week to purchase gas because prices level midweek.
False. If this were true wouldn’t everyone be doing it? There is no best day of the week to make a pit stop at the pump, or predict when prices will dip.There are several websites, locally our own guide to gas prices in your area, and nationally, GasBuddy.com and AAA’s Fuel Price Finder — that allow you to canvass your town’s stations without driving around in search of the best deal.

Higher the grade of gas, better the fuel economy

The claim: Your car manual recommends regular gasoline, but buying premium gas will get you better gas mileage because of its higher quality.
False. While premium grade is a higher-quality gas, that doesn’t mean your car necessarily needs it, according to Consumer Reports. Most cars are designed to run on regular gas, and many cars that recommend premium can also use regular because modern sensor systems automatically adjust to prevent engine knocking, a pinging noise caused by premature fuel ignition. Make sure you read your vehicle’s manual before making any changes to the products you use.

Over-inflate your tires

The claim: Filling under-inflated tires to their recommended pressure is a proven way to improve fuel economy. Conventional wisdom would follow that filling the tires even further, to the maximum on the tires’ pressure range, will only improve your gas mileage.

False. Inflating your tires beyond the recommended level will reduce the portion of the tire in contact with the road and the resistance between the tires and the road, but over-inflating them can make for a rocky ride. Popular Mechanics has also road tested this theory and concluded that the gas mileage doesn’t improve.The difference occurs when under-inflated tires are pumped to proper levels. In fact, the Department of Energy estimates that this simple fill up can improve your gas mileage by 3.3 percent.

Pump slowly

The claim: You will get more gas for your money if you set the nozzle to the slowest setting while you pump. More gas, and less air and vapors, will pass through the hose and into your tank.

False. There’s no truth to this claim, according to John Paul, AAA’s Car Doctor. Gas station systems are designed so that little air or fumes will take the place of the gas for which you’re paying dearly. There is one perk to pumping slowly, according to Paul. “What that will do, the end result is you will get a fuller tank, but you’re still paying for it.”

tailgate trick?

The claim: Driving with the tailgate of your truck down will make the truck more aerodynamic, which will help fuel economy.

False. The logic behind the argument is sound, but this is one theory that’s been tested — and debunked — by multiple car experts, including the Discovery Channel sleuths on the show MythBusters. According to Episode 43 of the program, which first aired in 2005, driving with the tailgate down reduces the number of miles you’ll get for your money

Use your overdrive to improve your fuel economy.

The claim: You can optimize your fuel economy on the highway by putting your car into overdrive, typically the transmission’s highest gear. This will allow your engine to run at a lower level of revolutions per minute, and use less energy.

True. According to the Department of Energy, when overdrive gearing is used, “your car’s engine speed goes down. This saves gas and reduces engine wear.”

A dirty air filter will cost you

The claim: If your air filter is dirty, your engine will receive less air, but burn the same amount of fuel, throwing off the car’s air/fuel ratio and making the vehicle more inefficient.

False. While this was once true, modern engine technology now compensates for the problems a dirty air filter would create. Both Consumer Reports and Popular Mechanics agree that today’s engines will inject exactly as much fuel as the engine needs, and will adjust to changes in the amount of air being received. However, regular car tuneups can’t hurt.

Reuters had this article about officials at Kent State University in Ohio allowing 4 day work week to its best employees so that they could reduce their gas bills.

read more at

USA Today had a article by Judy Keen and Paul Overberg on 9th May about how the increasing gas prices are affecting the daily lives of people. You can read more in the article titled: “Gas costs squeeze daily life, survey reveals how high prices have pushed us into new routines.”

Some interesting poll results are inserted below.

The Attitude poll was very reveling as well.

Robin Chase is the founder of Zipcar. Her vision for the way we would commute and travel in the coming years is revolutionary, but very plausible. She is working on a carpool site http://www.goloco.org, with a theme very similar to what we are trying to achieve at DivvymyRide.com (i.e. increase carpooling) but her approach is slightly different. GoLoCo.com (or should I say Robin) believes that the social community structure is enough to motivate a regular commuter to change his habits and switch over to carpooling locally. The web is good enough to bring people together on a superficial level, (checking blogs, leaving feedback or testimonials etc etc), but it is very hard to convince a person to share a car ride with someone person they got introduced on the web.

Any way listen to this great talk by her.

mayank