Exactly - and this is what SAFED *does* advise which, imho, compromises safety.

Chris

I can't find anything in the SAFED material which advises to use a gear which compromises safety.

I gather you have yourself carried out SAFED training and been told specifically to keep the vehicle in the highest gear at all times regardless of road and traffic conditions?

I could improve my normal mpg by at least 5mpg by slipstreaming lorries on the motorways. Doesn't mean it's a good idea

Chris

no but common sense on safed and advance driving can be mixed together to get good progress and good mpg.

A route i can normally get 40mpg+ was done today on taxi duty in my car and with less traffic to normal and sitting in responsive gears like on our drive outs got over a 30 mile route 25mpg nearly half of what i would normally get and only getting me round in only 5 minutes less time.... think i will stick to my mixture of safed/IAM where i can get good fuel economy and progress. Reckon i would have been closer to 50mpg (which has been achieved a couple of times on the same route if i had done it my normal way).

But then everyone to their own i guess.

I can't find anything in the SAFED material which advises to use a gear which compromises safety.

I guess it depends how you read it - most of the advice seems to focus of using a high gear/getting into top gear as quickly as possible as high gear/low revs is great for economy. There's also a suggestion that you should be in a high gear and let the vehicle "lug" you up a gradient.

I gather you have yourself carried out SAFED training and been told specifically to keep the vehicle in the highest gear at all times regardless of road and traffic conditions?

My opinions are based on what smstext has taught me during a drive together and also other people's experiences of the course. I've also looked at the demo drive in the video linked to and there are a couple of times, imho, where safety is compromised for being in the wrong gear:

8:35 - he lifts off as he's avoiding using the brakes at all costs but he seems to put a lot of faith in the car pulling out towards him going into the middle lane.

He then holds 5th gear at 30mph entering the roundabout and then changes gear to 4th gear while steering into the roundabout.

10:15 - His speed through town is too high for the level of hazards, imho, and he comments that he's in a gear such that he doesn't need to use the accelerator or brake. Suggests the engine is labouring and he's not in full control of the speed he's travelling.

10:58 - Driving using 5th in a 30mph zone as the road narrows with oncoming HGVs and lots of drive ways with limited visibility. He then continues on approaching a crossroad with a restricted view to the right.

At the end of the day, I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford to drive for fun and not worry about the economy so I can't see myself signing up for a SAFED course any time soon

Chris

A route i can normally get 40mpg+ was done today on taxi duty in my car and with less traffic to normal and sitting in responsive gears like on our drive outs got over a 30 mile route 25mpg nearly half of what i would normally get

You must have been ragging the nuts off your car to get 25mpg over 30 miles! With little traffic and good forward planning, I'm not sure I understand how you can get half the economy to your "normal" style unless you were going signicantly faster than you normally would, or you were doing the whole route in 2nd/3rd gear

As you say though, each to their own style

Chris

Chris to be honest I am quite embarrassed by the video, for some reason they saw fit to remove the head restraints from the car during filming from the rear of the vehicle. The head restraint is a vital safety feature of the vehicle and must be correctly adjusted at all times to protect the occupants.

I wouldnt take that video as the gospel on eco safe driving.

SAFED was developed principally for vans and lorries. The rev counter on a lorry usually has an indication of the most efficient RPM as shown by a green sector, the idea being if you over rev in a gear you are simply wasting fuel and should change up to keep the RPM in the green sector.

We are trying to remove the habits of needless sequential gear changes up and down the gear box and encourage forward planning to reduce the need to stop. Holding onto a cruising gear until there is a need to change it.

In police response driving you would hold onto 1st gear to 20mph, then 2nd upto 40 or 50 and 3rd upto 60 or 70, perhaps not using higher gears at all, this means you can take your foot off the gas and the car immediately slows before you get to the brake pedal. Whilst this extreme use of accelerator sense is fine for response driving it is not fuel efficient for civilian drivers.

In my diesel fabia I aim to keep my rev counter between 10 and 20, if I am sustaining more than 20 whilst not increasing speed I should change to a higher gear. As I said before I wouldn't pile into a hazard in 6th with the engine idle, I would drop to a more responsive gear.

You are right that video is a bit too involved with gears and not so interested in safety. Hence the lack of head restraints.

Having recently passed my C+E (class 1 in old money) I was taught to drive in an " Safed " style as it was how the examinor expected us to drive. I personally felt uncomfortable having to make the engine " labour " because that was the gear they expected you to be in.

I do however always try to arrive at a roundabout as a gap appears so that i can just " drive " onto it, same as red lights so you can slow and keep rolling, so you arrive as they turn green.

same as red lights so you can slow and keep rolling, so you arrive as they turn green.

I was taught this on my roadcraft course, and that's what the police use Ease and squeeze, and it is very surprising how effective it can be sometimes. If you know the lights as well you can sometimes just use one gear to coast down to create the gap and by the time you reach them they're green/turning green and you can take 2nd and carry on. fuel and brakes saved.

I was taught this on my roadcraft course, and that's what the police use Ease and squeeze, and it is very surprising how effective it can be sometimes. If you know the lights as well you can sometimes just use one gear to coast down to create the gap and by the time you reach them they're green/turning green and you can take 2nd and carry on. fuel and brakes saved.

Exactly my point, pulling away from stationary uses 60% more fuel. if you can keep the wheels moving then you will save on fuel. Best thing to do is find a route you do regularly and see what your usual mpg is around. then do a couple of trips SAFED, a couple using Advance driving techniques and see which suits you. you can also mix n match bits to suit you. I dont stay in 5th when i approach a roundabout but instead let off the acceleator as i approch it from about 200yds, by 50-100 yds im down to a speed i can put it into 2nd/3rd (depending on roundabout size) and ease onto it and take my exit before block changing to 4th/5th then 6th.

Chris to be honest I am quite embarrassed by the video, for some reason they saw fit to remove the head restraints from the car during filming from the rear of the vehicle. The head restraint is a vital safety feature of the vehicle and must be correctly adjusted at all times to protect the occupants.

I'm glad it wasn't just me then

I wouldnt take that video as the gospel on eco safe driving.

My concern was that this video *is* a gospel on eco-driving and people will see this and copy what's in it. What's more, the chap doing the demos *is* an instructor which means he's going to be spreading his ideas. :(

In police response driving you would hold onto 1st gear to 20mph, then 2nd upto 40 or 50 and 3rd upto 60 or 70, perhaps not using higher gears at all, this means you can take your foot off the gas and the car immediately slows before you get to the brake pedal. Whilst this extreme use of accelerator sense is fine for response driving it is not fuel efficient for civilian drivers.

I think comparing response driving to eco-driving is a bit like comparing apples and oranges as both have very different goals. A response driver doesn't care about economy and needs to get to a scene as safely and quickly as possible, with any economy being a bonus. Eco drivers don't care about getting anywhere quickly The advanced driving fraternity like to think they can find a happy medium between the two but I'm struggling to think of a road where I'd want to lose the flexibility of being in a gear which offered me engine braking and performance. One of the other things I've seen from associates who use a cruising gear, eg 5th/6th at 30mph is that they have difficulty maintaining a constant speed because any "creep" is magnified and a couple have speeding tickets as a result.

If you have access to any eco-driving videos which you think are more representative I'd love to have a look at them

As a final thought, I have a friend who took up advanced driving, passed his test and very much enjoys driving economically. He's just had his car serviced and has been told that his rear brakes are corroded to the point that they need replacing as they haven't been used enough which may be something to think about!

Chris

I was taught this on my roadcraft course, and that's what the police use Ease and squeeze, and it is very surprising how effective it can be sometimes. If you know the lights as well you can sometimes just use one gear to coast down to create the gap and by the time you reach them they're green/turning green and you can take 2nd and carry on. fuel and brakes saved.

One thing that may be worth knowing is that quite a few pelican crossings have a 7 second pedestrian crossing phase so you can time your arrival to coincide with that

Chris

I dont stay in 5th when i approach a roundabout but instead let off the acceleator as i approch it from about 200yds, by 50-100 yds im down to a speed i can put it into 2nd/3rd (depending on roundabout size) and ease onto it and take my exit before block changing to 4th/5th then 6th.

This sounds like gears/process above safety to me :P

If I'm approaching a roundabout (assuming 70mph d/c?) in 5th/6th, in my car I'm going to be needing the brakes at 200 yards to scrub off that sort of speed over 100 yards. However, every roundabout is different so I tend to think about points of reference rather than distance.

Running through IPSGA, I have to pick a couple of points:

1. the braking point, ie where I'm going to start slowing down

2. the decision point, ie the point at which I will know I can enter the hazard

The braking point is quite flexible and if you want to use engine braking can be very early. The decision point is dictated by the view you have onto the roundabout and can be very early or it can be at the giveway line.

So, adopt a position for the roundabout (I might consider the straightest line through to minimise losing too much speed), start slowing down at the braking point and then on arrival at the decision point where you can see your gap, select the correct gear for the *speed* you are travelling and accelerate into it. Imho, the view of the roundabout is more important than the size of it as you could easily drive across a mini-roundabout at 70mph if you had good visibility into all the exits, and conversely you might be limited to 20/30mph if you were on a big roundabout with poor visibility where queues may form.

I guess the big question is, does my approach cost me economy?

Chris

and anymore tips like the seven second one

The seven second one is a bit , sorry Chris.

and anymore tips like the seven second one

Seems I'm getting my birds mixed up!

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/tss/gpg/puffingoodpracticeguide.pdf on page 24 has the range of times that should be used for each phase. I've found for single carriageway crossings with one lane in either direction, 7 seconds is pretty common from pedestrian green to traffic red and amber

Chris

7 seconds is a good rule of thumb for Pelicans, my RoSPA observer taught me that and it's served me well since then. Glad to see it being disseminated