Aussie Motoring

by Stuart Livesey

Back in the late 1960s Sydney was hit with a number of strikes by petrol tanker drivers. For long periods of time - often well over a week - the tanker drivers would go out on strike for high pay. The result of course that petrol stations all over the city eventually ran dry.

To try and conserve fuel supplies the Government introduced a range of measures. These included odds and evens based on the last number in your number plate and governed which days you could by petrol and limiting the maximum amount of fuel you could buy at any one time.

At the same time the papers, television stations and radio stations were handing out plenty of tips on how to get the best possible fuel consumption.

Back in those days I had a Mini and one of the things that I did to conserve fuel - and a lot of other Mini drivers would do too - was to start in third with a quick change up to fourth. It wasn’t ideal but it certainly extended my range beyond anything the guys in 6 cylinder cars were achieving.

But no matter what did to conserve fuel we never quite got to the stage that some Americans have reached. Over there the relatively high cost of fuel has brought out a group known as hypermilers - extreme drivers at the other end of the scale we normally associate with the word ‘extreme’.

These guys will shift into neutral, switch the engine off and coast if they see a red light ahead. They’ll avoid streets with traffic lights and they’ll be what’s known as ‘ridge riders’ - drivers who stick as close as possible to the white line so they don’t drive in the slight ruts in the road caused by all the other traffic.

You can read more about them hereand here you will find that they have their very own website.

If they’re that desperate to save on fuel consumption maybe they should just catch a bus?

Here in Australia we have recently seen the introduction of labelling on new vehicles that is supposed to show the fuel consumption of that vehicle. On the surface that seems like a really good idea but are those figures genuine?

In the US a recent study has found that the posted fuel consumption figures in 90 percent of the 303 vehicles tested was inaccurate. In some cases the discrepancy between claimed fuel consumption and real fuel consumption was as much as 30 percent.

In the United States the worst discrepancies came in the fuel consumption claimed for city driving compared to what the genuine consumption was for the same conditions. Some models tested had variations of between 35 and 50 percent.

Are we looking at a similar situation here in Australia?