Ignore the bogeyman
Beating up on the petrol stations ignores the biggest factor behind our fuel bills – our own driving behaviour.
A government report released this week has poured a jerrycan of fuel on the long-standing suspicion that petrol companies are ripping us off.
The study’s authors didn’t say whether fuel prices were reasonable, but ‘‘we have reason to believe that they might not be’’.
Maybe there’s something dodgy going on, and maybe there’s not. The smell of gasoline tends to mask everything, but I’m catching a little whiff of grandstanding in this. Beating up on the petrol companies, who have no friends amongst voters, is a pretty savvy move in an election year.
If we’re really interested in saving money at the pump, let’s not get too carried away. Turning the oil barons into convenient bogeymen means we’ll continue to ignore the elephant in the room: We’re our own worst enemies.
Poor driving is far and away the biggest factor behind our high fuel bills. Don’t believe me? Let’s run the numbers.
The government report suggests that motorists in some parts of the country might be paying 15 cents a litre too much for petrol. If we assume that’s correct – and remember, it may not be – then those people are spending about 8 per cent more than they should be.
This seems like a big deal, but the real low-hanging fruit lies in your own hands – or more, accurately, in your feet. The way you drive and maintain your car can just about cut your fuel bill in half:
Slow down. Driving at 90kph uses a quarter less fuel than gunning it at 110.
Drive smoothly. Every time you brake, you’re burning fuel. Keep a good following distance and look ahead.
Cut out trips on a cold engine. Combine errands, or walk or jump on your bike instead.
Pump it up. Underinflated tires reduce efficiency by 4 per cent, so check your tires once a month and top them up as needed.
Limit aircon. Open the windows to cool down at low speeds, but wind them up above 50kph to reduce drag.
Cut any dead weight. Every extra 20kg on board chews up another 1 per cent.
There are lots of other strategies, but that’s the big stuff. The hardest part is changing driving habits that might have been ingrained over many years. If you want to get really geeky, you can stay on track by calculating how many kilometres you get out of each tank.
Fill your tank up until it clicks twice, and reset the trip counter on your odometer. Next time you fill up, go to the second click again, and record how many litres you used. Divide the number of litres by the trip counter reading, and multiply it by 100. That’ll give you your litres per 100km, which is the standard efficiency measure.
When I owned a car, I used to try to beat my record with every tank of gas. Turning into a game makes efficient driving not only more fun, but safer too.
I’m not saying we should let the petrol companies off the hook, and I look forward to seeing what happens once they hash it all out with the politicians and the economists.
But if we want to get serious MARTIN HUNTER / FAIRFAX NZ about saving on petrol, let’s focus on the things within our control. Don’t let convenient bogeymen distract you from taking the steering wheel – hands at ten and two – and carefully driving down your own fuel bill.
Got a money question? Email Budget Buster at richard.meadows@thedeepdish.org, or hit him up on Twitter at @MeadowsRichard.
‘ Poor driving is far and away the biggest factor behind our high fuel bills.