Brake-less Driving — a more environmental friendly way to drive your car

To all readers who are drivers, I’d like to share a style of driving that I believe would make us more socially responsible and safe. I call this Brake-less driving. It is not about driving without braking, but about minimizing braking. We all know in our daily driving, time is money. And so we tend to drive in the way to get to the destination as soon as possible. But in doing so, we tend to overtake needlessly, accelerate hard and brake hard. Now some of us may be doing this to achieve the highest speed for the road he/she is traveling, to get the most efficiency from the car. But this is wasteful (in terms of petrol consumption) and creates a lot of stress on ourselves.

So what is Brake-less driving? Before I go to that, let me share with you why I thought of this. I used to work for a Japanese company and there were times I need to go to Tokyo for business meetings. I found that in any meeting room of any building I went to, the air conditioning is always minimally warm (not cool; usually the temperature is set at 26C). Every time I go for a meeting, I have to request to lower the air conditioning temperature as we have cooler temperature in office back home. So I start to wonder and ask my Japanese colleagues why they are doing this. I was told that it is a social norm to keep the air conditioning down to conserve energy. This is not mandated by government rules or company policies, it is just a social practice! So similarly in driving, I thought it would be good if all of us drive in a more socially responsible way, and we could all help to conserve energy and reduce pollution.

So how does Brake-less driving help us? I am going to assume we all have some basic science knowledge. If we can drive our car without any braking to the destination, then we would have been most efficient in using the petrol. Braking cancels out the acceleration from our engines consuming the petrol. In hybrid cars and EV’s, this would be similar as well because regenerative breaking does not fully recover all the energy from the motion of the car. Hence if we can minimize the total amount of braking in driving to our destination, we would have achieved practically the most efficient way of using petrol (or battery power) to get there. In real terms, we would have to “coast” our car much more often. “Coasting” means we let our cars continue to move forward without hitting the accelerator.

So what is it like to drive the Brake-less way? It means you no longer focus on maintaining the distance to the car in front. You should be thinking of how much acceleration (to step on your foot pedal) to your next slow-down or stopping point. This can be a traffic light, a turning point, a hump, up-going slope, the car in front in a jam, etc. Brake-less driving does not mean you have to drive slowly. You can go at whatever speed you are comfortable or you feel safe with your car as long as you minimize your braking. For example, in turning at a corner, we often accelerate into the corner, brake when close to the corner, then coast at the corner and then accelerate again. In the Brake-less style, we would accelerate at the right speed to reach the corner and coast through the corner. We accelerate at the right speed not by braking, but by gently reducing the amount you step on the accelerator (hence reducing the acceleration and speed of your car) to slow down the car. Most drivers do not decelerate the car by reducing the pressure on the accelerator pedal; they usually release the accelerator pedal and step on the brake lightly. Of course, you have to decelerate at the right speed, otherwise you might crash into the car in front.

Another frequent example is that of accelerating hard to get to the top of the slope. After passing the top, you would tend to feel that your car would be too fast and you would then step on the brake. But if you are familiar with the road, then you should go up the slope at the right pace such that you can take advantage of the downward slope to move your car forward without stepping on the accelerator.

Now, safety is of utmost importance. Brake-less driving does not mean you subject your car to a possible collision. You still have to exercise caution and if you need to brake, please do. Brake-less driving also does not mean you drive slower. How fast you drive depends on how well you manage the distance and acceleration. Your pedal feel of the accelerator, brake sensitiveness and sense of the cars in front of you determines how well you can do Brake-less driving.

I hope you find this style of driving interesting. I have found it to be more enjoyable to drive in this way than to chase the jerk that overtook me in a close shave. I am sure you can easily get 10% or more improvement in your fuel efficiency. And if more of us adopt this style of driving, we would be able to help conserve energy and reduce pollution on our roads. Just like the Japanese social norm of reducing the air conditioning for their offices.

Give Brake-less driving a shot. If you are successful in this, you may like to share your tips here.