Oxford Word of the Year? HYPERMILING!

Hypermilers weapon of choice
Originally uploaded by tango_28

The 2008 Word of the Year is hypermiling.
I have been doing this for years. I learned to drive in the late seventies when the first wave of the energy crisis hit. I had a Dodge Omni with the transverse mounted four cylinder engine. my dad, who was a guy who grew up during WWII gas rationing and was an old race car driver from the dirt track days, taught me how fuel can be conserved by coasting, and pulse and glide etc. We didn't have a fany word for it then. Now we do.
Here are some tips:
keep the tires on your car properly inflated to the maximum recommended amount.
Kill your roof rack to streamline the car and reduce drag.
Turn your engine off rather than idling at long stoplights.
visit www.ecomodder.com
I am a frequent visitor to the site to get new ideas.
Here is some ink from the Huffington Post about the whole deal:
"Some history:
“Hypermiling” was coined in 2004 by Wayne Gerdes, who runs this web site. “Hypermiling” or “to hypermile” is to attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one’s car and one’s driving techniques. Rather than aiming for good mileage or even great mileage, hypermilers seek to push their gas tanks to the limit and achieve hypermileage, exceeding EPA ratings for miles per gallon.
Many of the methods followed by hypermilers are basic common sense—drive the speed limit, avoid hills and stop-and-go traffic, maintain proper tire pressure, don’t let your car idle, get rid of excess cargo—but others practiced by some devotees may seem slightly eccentric:
• driving without shoes (to increase the foot’s sensitivity on the pedals)
• parking so that you don’t have to back up to exit the space
• “ridge-riding” or driving with your tires lined up with the white line at the edge of the road to avoid driving through water-filled ruts in the road when it’s raining
Hypermiling has also gotten some positive attention in 2008, gaining mainstream traction as gas prices soared and the need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, especially those from foreign sources, has become more apparent. A new initiative launched by the Association of Automobile Manufacturers and supported by such notables as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger advocates the practice, referring to it as EcoDriving.
President-elect Barack Obama observed during his campaign that Americans could save as much oil as would be produced by proposed off-shore drilling if only they kept their tire pressures at recommended levels and took their cars in for regular tune-ups. Republicans’ subsequent criticisms of Obama’s statement put these measures advocated by hypermilers in the center of the debate between conservation and drilling as solutions to Americans’ foreign oil dependence problem.
A growing number of Americans favor hypermiling as a sensible set of practices for all drivers who are concerned about their wallets, the environment, and fuel independence, not just for those on the fringe who are obsessed with increasing their MPG numbers."