I was thinking this exact same thing to myself this afternoon. I bought a 2010 Prius back in Nov. 2010 (replaced a Honda Civic). And what you wrote is exactly true in my case as well. I don't speed anywhere near as much as I used to - I'm actually always trying to glide in electric mode at 45mph so if anything, I drive slightly under. I will say that my wife says I drive like an old man and that if she was behind me, she'd be annoyed. So I'm not sure the word "better" in "better driver" is accurate for me, but I do keep a wide space between myself and the car in front, I accelerate much more slowly, and I'm usually driving the speed limit or slightly under it. So I'm definitely a safer driver. I'm the same even for finding a place to avoid door dings. This annoys my wife too. But on the flip side for all this wife-annoyance, I have to say when she borrows my car she totally messes up all my stats. She gets in, hits "PWR mode" and my great "Trip A" mileage stats all fall off a cliff.
OCD types like me can find the Prius experience frustrating. I have been known to throw out an epithet or two when a light turns red too close in front of me. I have had to resort to behavior modification wherein I do not allow myself to look at the fuel consumption meters during driving. If you find for example that there is a *world* of difference between 69.9 and 70.0 mpg, you too are sick. Yes, this post is tongue in cheek. Somewhat
I have been a conservative driver since the first "energy crisis" in the 70s. Even when riding my motorcycles, I usually coast to red lights, accelerate moderately, drive at the speed limit, and try to maintain a steady speed. The Prius is excellent because it demonstrates the value of these fuel saving characteristics. I have notice some Prius' driving fast, tailgating, and pulling away from red lights at a high rate of acceleration. I wonder why these people are driving such a vehicle.
So true for me too. Big change from the Audi S4 (16mpg if you are curious) that I had before. My wife would classify me as an "aggressive" driver. Now I don't go over 65mph, and always stay within the speed limit.
I don't think it is the car -- It's me getting older. I'm driving slower (no jack rabbit starts or sudden stops), getting far better gas mileage and enjoying the view of everything around me. When I was younger and far more aggressive, I almost had tunnel vision watching only what was in front of me and always keeping an eye on the rear view mirror (looking for cops coming up on my tail). Now I just blend in with the traffic and enjoy the ride..... Keith
You must live in a tough neighborhood to have all the mature coyote's after you. Keith P.S. I hope you are over 18..................
Prius rewards you in MPGs for being a smoother driver. In conventional car, hardly worth the bother to try to drive smooth for more miles per gallon, you won't gain much anyway.
+1 but I think I was already driving cars smoothly. Being an electronic engineer and my brother being a mechanical engineer, we tend to optimise everything, and driving smooth is the best way to reduce waste when driving a car, any car for that matter. So when I was driving the VW Polo TDI 1.4L before getting the Prius, I was already trying to drive smooth, but in some cases you just could not do it or did not really see immediately the disadvantages of giving "gas" at a traffic light. On the Prius every time you give in, at least in my commute, you see an immediate increase of the FE of 0.1L/100km...and that annoys me... What also made an additional change, apart from the gas at 1.5€/L (you do the math for US equivalent price/gallon...it's not nice, I tell you) is using the GPS Navigation. I bought a Tomtom Go 1000 and since then I can see exactly that driving at the speed limit, smoothly and even hitting a red light rather than rushing to avoid it, it will not change the overall driving time noticeably. Often the difference is 1min over 25 min commute, or 15mins over a multiple hour drive. So why go any faster/hastier if the benefits (and $$$) are so negligible?? Baseline, I typical relax and stress down when driving the Prius and observe interestingly the people mostly freaking out around me and not really understanding what they are doing to themselves and their pockets by driving how they are driving (not to mention the additional chaos they add to city traffic by not trying to keep the flow). You can read this as well - it goes well with your post here, I believe.
It sounds like you have all watched me drive. I do the same thing now and there is a simple reason. We bought the Prius to same on fuel, so we now drive the car the way to save that fuel. I can honestly say, that if gas were 89 cents / gal, I would drive like I used to. BTW, when I was a kid in NJ my father would send me to the Gulf station down the street (walking of course) with a dollar and a five gallon can. He would say, fill it up and don't forget my change!
Never had anything like this in EU, or in Italy... I remember only 2 episodes and are related to "expensive": - about 6 years ago fuelling my Polo diesel with 0,85€/L price and thinking - "wow, this is expensive - almost the same price as gas". - when I was kid, we went with my father fuelling our Fiat 127 and he was complaining that the price was 1000Lire/L - or about 0.45€/L - that was the early 80s in Italy... Cheap gas simply "never" really existed on this side of the pond...
