The problem with ANY engineer is that they are usually FAR from the front lines of the products they design. Even cars… Talk to any car mechanic, they’ll tell you engineers are smoking something. Quite often working on cars, the engineer’s lack of real world experience with their own designs becomes VERY apparent.

The caveats are obviously well known, yes it is illegal to have your car in neutral (at least where I live), yes it leaves you with impaired response ability in a dangerous scenario, yes increased tire pressure changes the handling characteristics of your vehicle, yes your car will ride like a sled with the tire pressure so high, yes most drivers are so poor at driving normally that they are very poor candidates for using even “smooth” driving technique, let alone hypermilling. Yes we all speed, wasting gas yet continue to complain about the price, yes we buy non fuel efficient cars because they are what we want more then fuel efficient cars. Yes you will wear out your starter faster, or you won’t, depending on your aptitude with starting your car in motion (it can be an art). All of these variables can be altered, should someone wish to put forth the effort. Yes it is imperative that you get your car to operating temperature as fast as possible, not to mention before you start push starting it or starting it in motion. That isn’t an opinion, that’s fact. Yes, these techniques work best on manual transmission cars, without power steering (which as some people here will know, is a waste after 10mph, unless you drive some very heavy vehicle).

Drove a ’64 Lincoln Continental once with the P/S system not functional… now that was an adventure.

The bottom line is, it is each of us our own choice what we want to do about driving and fuel economy. Attacking each other is pointless. Do what you feel you can or should, and live with the consequences, good or bad. I will do the same.

One thing to keep in mind when you’re calculating costs is that you are using up your tires with every mile you drive, even though you don’t notice the cost of it until you get around to buying a new set. Depending on the vehicle and the tire, it’s like adding another 50 cents a gallon to your costs under a typical scenario.

If you want to minimize tire costs, make sure you keep your pressure at an optimum level for your vehicle and driving conditions — this is seldom the maximum pressure on the tire’s sidewall, but probably fairly close to the manufaturer’s recommendation. An earlier commenter suggested using chalk marks to cover this.

Add to this the practice of keeping your tires balanced, the alignment in good shape and regularlarly rotating your tires. These practices can easily add up to 20% to your tire life. I go into many of these things in more detail at http://www.tire-information-world.com/car-maintenance.html , if you’d care to know more.

P.S. – I get a consistent 26+ mpg highway from a 6 cylinder Mustang, not the most fuel-efficient vehicle, simply by maintaining reasonable constant speed (highway 65-70), accelerating and braking as gradually as is reasonable, and otherwise behaving responsibly on the highway. That isn’t just enough; it’s best.

If one really wants to safe fuel, the bicycle may be the most economical vehicle there is. Please spend the extra time you have riding it, and not running me late for everything waiting for the inevitable ambulances to clear the road.
Respectfully-Submitted.