Five Lessons From 'Mileage Misers' On How To Beat High Gas Prices

The United Postal Service, better known as UPS (UPS), has been working for the past few years to run their trucks efficiently. And with gas prices at a record high, now is a more important time than ever to find come up with an effective method of doing so.

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Through time studies, the delivery company found that avoiding left hand turns actually saves time, reduces emissions, conserves fuel and reduces the potential for accidents. According to their website, in 2007 UPS shaved nearly 30 million miles off their delivery routes, saved 3 million gallons of gas and reduced emissions by 32,000 metric tons of CO2, simply by minimizing left hand turns in their delivery routes.

According to one UPS driver MainStreet tracked down, the company has people who analyze and then re-engineer the recommended routes that drivers take in order to minimize the idling time. The rationale behind the practice is that one hour of idling time per day consumes .4 gallons of fuel. That may seem like a minute number but with 93,000 vehicles in their fleet, UPS burns a collective 3,700 gallons of fuel for an hour’s worth of idling each day.

Just as UPS has made a conscious effort cut back, drivers across the country do the same thing in their own vehicles, and you can too. Often referred to as mileage or fuel misers, people have determined a number of ways to get the most from your visits to the gas station.
Bloggers, advice columnists and even UPS itself have all offered drivers a list of ways that they can implement the practices into their own lives. Here are a few of the best tips from across the Web: