Driving the GreenRoad to Safety

The fuel of life

   Wouldn’t it be great to wake up one morning and find a fully functional and productive oil well, comfortably located in your backyard?  Until recently, unless your back yard was thousands of miles of sand dunes, the chances of this happening were quit slim.  However, do not lose faith on this dream – it may just come true. 

Opportunity is knocking; no – forget knocking, opportunity is slamming on the door.  The frame is about to crack and the hinges can hardly stand the pressure.  The prime source for energy in our world, the one driving the wheels of our cars and essentially of our economy, is about to change.  And when energy sources are changing, new opportunities reveal themselves.

There is a very good chance you can significantly improve your life and discover a pot of gold at the same time.  The irony of it all is that this double treasure was yours all along.  It is circumstance that helps to highlight it and place a large “X” over its location, just for you.

It’s no secret that the chase for a replacement for fossil fuel is on.  Inventors are busy coming up with new ideas and corporations are hiring the best minds in the market to crack the code of the next energy source.  Venture capitals are investing heavily in what could potentially be the next form of energy to keep our wheels turning.

And here’s what’s interesting: While the need for a replacement source of energy is current and immediate, all  of the solutions discussed will only mature in the future.  Maybe it will be wind power or solar.  It could even be corn, sugar or some bio mix created in a lab.  We just don’t know yet.  Each solution has its ups and downs.  Some sources can produce the energy but are bad for the environment.  Others are good for the environment but are not reliable.  The search is still on.  While we are busy coming up with future solutions, we should also spend time looking for solutions that can be available, well, now. 

Because whether you own just one car, or a whole fleet of cars, you could really use a solution right now that will help decrease your fuel spend. Imagine cutting your fuel cost by just 5%; what would that do to your bottom line?

Barrels are at $150, some say prices will go up as high as $250 in the near future.  I don’t care about corn, wind or electricity.  These solutions will take years to develop, test and turn into marketable products. Like you, I would really like to see a solution that will relieve my spending pain now!

Two birds with one stone

It turns out that while we are waiting for all of the future fuel technologies to evolve and mature, we can actually save a considerable amount of fuel and money by just watching the way we drive.   A few years back I visited a factory in the UK, one of the largest beverage distributors there. An aggressive CFO decided he is going to cut fuel costs.  His plan was simple.  First he measured the average MPG of the fleet drivers.  Next he moved to penalize all the drivers whose MPG was worse than the average.  He provided incentives to the drivers that managed to beat the MPG.  As you can imagine, this plan captured everybody’s attention and raised awareness in drivers to be cautious about the way they drive.

Walking in between the company’s trucks and eighteen wheelers I asked the drivers with the best MPG to explain how they managed to increase their fuel efficiency.  Here’s what they said:

1.       Very moderate accelerations

2.       Take your time to get to the speed you plan to travel in

3.       Stick to the speed limit, wherever you are.  If the sign says 35, then 35 it is.

4.       Read the road ahead. Is that light red? No rush to get to the junction

5.       Produce a smooth and moderate drive as much as possible

6.       Don’t idle your vehicle.  Vehicle is parked? Engine is off.

These tips, spoken from true professionals, are very interesting.  First, because they managed to improve MPG by sticking to them, and second (or first, depending on how you prioritize things) because when we interviewed then, they tended to list the same tips for safe driving!

Good MPG, it turns out, is good safety as well.  We have been checking this for a long time, and it’s a fact.  The drivers who crash less are the ones burning less fuel.

So if you are after improved MPG, if you want to start digging for your own treasure to find a secret source of money planted right in your back yard, start driving moderately.  Make sure your drivers are driving moderately.  You’ll will hit two birds with one stone:

·         Improved MPG

·         Improved safety

Drive safely, it’s worth it.

Hod Fleishman,

Founder and SVP of BD

GreenRoad

Too Much Driving Data: A Good Thing?

Have you ever entered a room where the combined IQ of the people inside it was large enough to solve all of the world’s problems? That’s the feeling I got every time I entered a session at this year’s Transportation Research Board in Washington, DC.  This scholarly and well-run 87 year old event, has hundreds of sessions, with researchers focused on some aspect of road safety.  Enter the TRB world and you can attend sessions with catchy names like “Advanced Pavement Analysis,” or “Load and Resistance Factor Design of Concrete Bridge Superstructures.” Wow.  So what is a safety boy like me doing in a place like this? From first glance it does seem that the construction engineers have the inside track, but a closer look reveals a lot of interesting discussion around driver behavior, teen driving behavior and crash prevention technologies—now we’re talking!

Attending these driver behavior sessions (with more earthly titles such as “Teen Driving – Status and Research”) you can’t help but wonder why car crashes still happen.  I mean, there is no lack of data as to why crashes occur.  If anything, there is an overabundance of such data.  Researchers have diced and segmented the modern driver’s soul into thin slices testing every aspect of driver behavior, psychology, motives for driving, skill variations per mile driven, etc.  Chances are that if you can name it, someone plugged a sensor into it, observed it, composed a questionnaire on it, or ran a study about it.  So with all of this data out there, why are car crashes still on the rise??

Maybe its time we shift from the why (why crashes happen) to the what (what actions we can take to improve our own personal driving safety).  Researchers have overloaded us with statistics, many pointing to the same set of facts about why crashes happen, and we know that 95% of crashes are at least partially caused by human error.  So, let’s start considering driving less a right of entitlement, and more a behavior decision with inherent risk that should be handled with a lot of care.  What if we all decided to start being more proactive, and more responsible with our own driving behavior?  What if we agreed that safe driving is a decision that we make every time we enter our cars?  There are numerous things every one of us can do to reduce crashes.  Here are my top 5, and I’d love to hear what others have to say:

1.       Enjoy your trip, allow enough time, and be relaxed.  As soon as you enter your car, decide you are taking your time.  There is no rush to get anywhere. 

2.       Don’t surprise, don’t be surprised.  Give others (and yourself) plenty of room and time to react

3.       Wear a big skirt.  Well, not literally, but imagine you are wearing a big skirt around your car.  You don’t want anyone stepping on it, so keep a safe distance from anyone or anything.

4.       Stop lying to yourself.  When you are tired – you can’t drive safely.  Many have proven this by trying and failing, so there is no need to try it for yourself

5.       Stop fantasizing in traffic.  You are not a NASCAR driver, and the road leading to your office is not Talladega.  Start scoring how well you drive, by how safely you drive; leave the performance driving to the pro’s, or go to a specifically designated racing track.

Let’s all start spending a little time and effort investing in our individual driving safety--now.  Who knows, maybe by the next TRB all the researchers will wear puzzled faces, having to explain how crashes around the world suddenly began to decline.  It could happen…

I’d love to hear from you about your top 5 safe driving tips.  Please email me at hodf@greenroadtech.com

Drive safe, it’s worth the effort,

Hod Fleishman

Founder, GreenRoad Technologies