First, Change Your Behavior
When I was a kid on the stage and I would raise my eyebrow at a certain moment or make a gesture in a certain context and the audience would react one way or the other, it didn't take a whole lot of smarts to know whether I should raise my eyebrow or make a gesture the next time that moment in the routine came along. The audience response was all that was required. My grandson says I was like some component of an electrical circuit getting positive feedback. When ever I got it I washed, rinsed and repeated and whenever I didn't it got thrown into the dustbin of vaudeville rejects never to see the light of day again.
The other day, when it was sweltering hot, a state of affairs that never bothered me much, my grandson took me for a ride up into the hills of Massachusetts to a lake house owned by the parents of some girl friend where he went kayaking, and I sat under a tree by the shore and just enjoyed the day with a radio and a magazine.
While we were driving I noticed he was putting the transmission in neutral on the hills and I asked him about it and he said he was saving on gas. Given that he was behaving like some Okie on his way to California, I asked him if he had lost his job or something and needed a loan. That wasn't the case. He shows me this readout on the console that tells him his average MPG. He tells me that he drives bare footed so that he can be sensitive to exactly how much he is pressing the accellerator. He says never go over 55 while pressing the accelerator, only when going down hill and the transmission is in neutral because the air pressure on the window must be overcome by the engine before you can go any faster and your just wasting gas. He tells me you can add 20% to your average gas mileage by following a few rules and that the readout on the console is your positive feedback for your behavior just like the audience was for mine.
The rules are don't go over 55 because wind pressure increases the faster you go, use the lightest of touches on the accelerator because slow acceleration is much more efficient than fast, keep enough space between you and the car in front of you so that you don't ever unnecessarily apply the brakes and when you do you can slow down gradually, always put the transmission in neutral on a hill and get both speed and distance for minimum cost. There were a few others, but if a tank of gas costs you 50 dollars with your normal behavior you will now go the same distance on about 40 dollars.
So while your waiting for your political elite to stop scratching their asses on your behalf, you can have the equivalence of three dollars a gallon gas with the help of the positive feedback of a computer readout and a change of behavior on your part.
Now I understand we are not all like my grandson, but you didn't have to go to MIT at the age of 16 like he did to follow these simple rules. If you don't want to, the next time you choose to bitch about our ass scratching elite, you might want to do it while lookiing in the mirror.
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