Singaporean drivers are a strange lot. It seems reasonable to assume that many are well educated professionals who are valued for clear thinking and great foresight. These qualities are relegated to the backseat when they take the wheel.

While driving on the expressways, you will see some people tailgating. Some do it in the overtaking lane, presumably to pressure the driver in front. Others tailgate large, slow moving goods vehicles. Why do they do that? A bit of thought should convince anyone that there is no reason for it. Firstly, the one following the goods vehicle can't see anything in front. In the event of a sudden stop, he will just rear end the goods vehicle. Newton's 3rd law suggests that it is a bad idea. Secondly, following so closely prevents him from moving to a faster lane. Switching lanes while still at a slow speed will obstruct the approaching vehicles, so that won't work. With no room to accelerate and unwilling to back off, they are stuck. It's a bit tricky to plan when the rear end of an SBS bus is in your face. They seem to like it.

Those who tailgate other vehicles hope they can pressure the one in front to go faster, or maybe get out of their way. They probably want to, but cannot because they are overtaking another vehicle. I guess these are the "road hogs" people complain about in forum letters. But what if they are already going at the speed limit? Are they still road hogs? They are not unreasonably slow, they are overtaking, which is the purpose of the right most lane. On the contrary, it is the tailgating driver who is at fault. He is driving recklessly, he wants to speed, and some of them still have the nerve to glare at the law abiding driver when they finally get the chance to overtake.

A very common example of shortsightedness occurs at traffic lights. The light in front is red. A driver has taken his foot of the accelerator and is coasting towards it. Another vehicle approaches rapidly from behind, slows down and tailgates a while. He then gets impatient, pulls over to another lane and accelerates away. Zooom..... Ooh look, the light is red. He brakes hard and joins the queue waiting at the traffic light. The "slow" driver now coasts serenely past, taps the brake gently and comes to a smooth stop.

The much more amusing scenario occurs when that lane already has a stopped car while the other is clear. The impatient guy comes to a stop and the light turns green. The "slow" one who coasted accelerates smoothly and leaves everyone else behind. It's much easier to speed up then to start off from a dead stop. Inertia, Newton's first law. Secondary school physics isn't as useless as most people seem to think.

Petrol in Singapore is expensive. People know it. They feel the hit on their pockets. Yet many do not apply some simple practices which can save them quite a lot. "Wait a minute" you say, "there's no free lunch". True enough, the tradeoff is time. You'll need to spend just a little more time travelling. Would you queue 20 minutes for a 30% discount off your petrol bill? The fact is, you don't lose that much time. Even if a more aggressive driver gets a 1km lead on you, that's a grand total of about 1 minute at 60 km/h. For a twenty minute trip, it's about a 5% difference. Your petrol saving might be 30%. Think about it.

And yet when this is mentioned to people, they laugh. "Why drive so slowly?" "My time is precious." "It's fun to drive like that." Guess what? At the end of it all, you hear, "petrol is expensive." But they miss the entire point. The trick is to look ahead and minimise speed changes. Gradually accelerate up to highway speed. The difference between accelerating quickly or slowly up to 90km/h is negligible over the course of a long journey.

Some figures might be useful. A 1.5L manual car, driven carefully, can get 20km/litre. Using a petrol price of $2.246/litre, that's 11.23 cents per km. A 1.6L auto family car usually gets 12 to 13 km/litre, according to car salesmen. That's 18 cents per km, 60% more. A large luxurious car, driven aggressively, gets 7.4km per litre, which is 30 cents per km, 2.67 times more. Clearly, the choice of car plays a great factor, but so does the driving style. The Green Transport Guide, which you can find buried deep in http://www.aas.com.sg says the difference is around 20%. There's no need to moan and hope for petrol prices to drop. Drive properly and cut 20% off your fuel bill, plus you lower the risk of getting into an accident.

This post is already long enough. Thank you if you read till this point. Next time, I'll go into practical ways to cut your petrol bill.

(Figures from personal experience, and reading off a friend's instrument panel.)
(Although I am comparing different cars, the original point stands. Driving properly can lead to significant savings.)