As Eddie Izzard Says... "Ciao!"

You could be riding around the city on a scooter saving massive gas mileage! This is another way to save money on gas, and have fun getting around. Scooting would let you take the HOV lanes on the freeway, but with some of the smaller scooters, I wouldnt' recommend it.

When people think of motorcycle commuting, it's important to remember that scooters and mopeds are ok too.

Gas Mileage Hacking

This article about people who drive a specific way to maximize gas mileage is pretty interesting. A lot of what they do are things we encourage here at IAST:

• "avoiding jackrabbit starts"


• "avoiding stop-and-go"


• "anticipating lights"


• "driving a bit more slowly"

A few we definitely don't support:

• slightly overinflated tires to cut rolling resistance


• drafting like race cars behind larger vehicles

The drafting idea is dangerous, because it is essentially tailgating behind the largest vehicles that have the hardest time seeing smaller cars. Tailgating is bad, but the other lessons are good ones, and with gas nearly $4 a gallon, we should all consider driving better to save gas. In the article:

“I do as few accelerations and brakings as possible to get up to speed and
maintain it,” he said. He ... avoids lane changes and coasts to red lights.

Sounds like our message exactly. Save money: Drive better!

Beware the Bear!

I hope your memorial day weekend was fabulous. If you drive to work tomorrow, be careful not to hit a bear!

Today is Drive Nice Day

Today is Drive Nice Day. You can get a sticker at several locations. If you've got a sticker and haven't put it in your window yet, now is the time to do it!

Go to Drive Nice Day [www.driveniceday.org] for more information. We'll be posting pictures and other tid-bits from the event.

Also, KOMORadio posted a hotlink to driveniceday.org.

Careful Passing and the Flying V on Seattle Highways

There is a phenomenon I have witnessed on Seattle's highways. That of people driving at the same speed next to each other. This is much akin to geese flying in formation.

Don't create the flying V. This is wrong. People should just be getting into the passing lane (that is the left one for those of you moving here from the other hemisphere) unless you intend to pass somebody. If you aren't passing, please refrain from using this lane. The space is primarily there to enable PASSING not CRUISING.

If you are being passed by cars in the right lane, you probably should not be in the left (passing) lane. This key indicator, cars passing you with people shaking their fists in the air, is a signal for you to get back into the non-passing lane.

If you do, in fact, decide to pass someone in the left lane, please return to the non-passing lane when you are done and you will be helping reduce congestion and will be helping Seattle with its traffic problem.

A final note, passing is one the most dangerous components of driving. According to IVI, lane changes account for 10% of crashes. When you're passing, be extremely careful with each lane change; signal your intentions by turning on your signal long before changing lanes; and be respectful of the other vehicles on the road. Also, be extra careful on the 24th since it's Drive Nice Day!

Not Crop Circles...

Here's an article I found that shows the reduction of accidents after putting in Traffic Circles in neighborhoods. Neighborhood Traffic Calming: Seattle's Traffic Circle Program

I think it's amazing how making the right small change can make a big impact on a problem. This is how I view the traffic congestion problems in Seattle. This is a seemingly daunting problem that many people don't believe they can affect. But you can affect it.

You personally can change your driving behaviors in simple and repeatable ways to improve traffic. You must realize that traffic is created by cars, cars are driven by people, and people have bad habits. It's not fun to drive more responsibly, but it is powerful.

You created the traffic. Take a stand and change your part of the road.

Drive Nice Day - Seattle Times

The Seattle Times has an article about Drive Nice Day today.

Are you Driving Nice?

Thursday this week is Drive Nice Day. I Am Seattle Traffic is now an official sponsor of Drive Nice Day, and we've been out handing out stickers and trying to get them in the back window of as many cars as possible.

Drive Nice Day is about driving more couteously and trying to avoid accidents on the most collision-prone day of the year!

We'd also really like to get some pictures of cars with Drive Nice Day stickers. 20,000 stickers were made for the event this year, so if you spot one, get a picture and send it to us at info@iamseattletraffic.org

Don't forget to visit DriveNiceDay.org to learn more about the event.

National Bike to Work Day

Tomorrow is National Bike to Work Day, read more about Bike2WorkDay here. Many breakfasts are being offered, including one from my employer!

If you really want to send the oil companies a message, forget about meaningless one-day boycotts where you don't buy gas built still drive. Take the bike to work once a week, or ride the bus twice a week. If all Americans did that we'd save 10 billion barrels of oil a year, costing the oil companies about $600 billion dollars and lowering the price of gas by $1.25 a gallon.

Better Driving Please!

I stumbled on this site from UK called Better Driving Please! They're taking license plates of bad drivers and trying to "help out the authorities" with improving the raods. A bit extreme compared to what we do, but we can take all the help we can get!

Take a look and let us know what you like/don't like/what you learned from their site.

Cheerio!

www.DriveNiceDay.org

The www.DriveNiceDay.org web site is up and running! Go check it out and learn more about Drive Nice Day, May 24th, 2007.

There are stickers available, and you can get them at locations listed here.

There are also drive nice tips on the site.

Drive Nice! It's Contagious.

No Rubberneckin'

Occasionally, when people are on their commute, something miraculous, mysterious, or otherwise interesting happens on the edge of the road. These occurrences include but are not limited to:

• Accidents


• Road Side Assistance


• Natural Disasters


• Sport Events


• Police pulling people over


• Streakers


• Planes flying overhead with advertisements

When an interesting event occurs, people begin to do something that I refer to as "rubbernecking". Rubbernecking is the act of twisting your attention away from the road and on to the roadside distraction. What people do not realize when they rubberneck is that they tend to slow down. This is bad. Slowing down for one person tends to cause slowing down for others and spreads the rubbernecking because people then realize there is something interesting to stare at.

Please, Seattle, try to refrain from rubberneckin' and maintain your true speed!

Put Down Your Cellphones!

At least while driving anyway. They have been officially banned in Washington. The legislature passed the build last month, and Governor Chris Gregoire signed it late Friday. The law doesn't take into effect until July 2008 (seriously, why wait?). It includes text messaging (which become banned January 2008), but not hands-free sets, which remain legal.

The offenses are secondary offenses, which mean that you cannot be pulled over just for talking on the phone, but you will get a bigger ticket if you are pulled over for something else while talking on the phone. The fine for texting will be at least $101. That's almost as bad as my providers data rate!

Driving while talking on the phone has been repeatedly shown to be very dangerous, and that hands-free is almost as bad as hands-on. The photo to the left is an actual real-life 520 driver who drove dangerously while talking on the phone. Please, for your safety and ours, hang up the phone.

Letter from Julie!

Here's a recent email I got from someone about this site. I thought I'd share with everyone since it explained the spirit of what we're trying to do here.

Dear iamseattletraffic,

Okay seriously, so this is really having an effect on me! I didn’t quite expect this, but I have been driving with the iamseattletraffic sticker in my window for about a week and I notice that I’m paying attention to my driving habit more closely. Especially in congested traffic!

I’m still working on cutting out the old habit of trying to accelerate too much and breaking, but I’m making progress, and I made a trip during commute time the other day without many stops. It made the whole drive seem less frustrating.

I find the advocating of the program has me more aware of my driving actions towards others and I’m cutting in less and being more aware and courteous overall. I’ll bet other drivers like being around me more…! :-)

Thanks for putting up this site (and to my friend for sending it my way)! Something I thought was sorta tongue in cheek actually made a big difference for a typically-unpleasant chunk of my day!

Cheers,

Julie

Julie, thanks for the email and keep moving toward Traffic Zen. We can do this one car at a time!

37 miles of bike-lanes coming

Seattle is installing 37 miles of bike trails in the city, according to its Bicycle Master Plan. The Ballard News Tribune has a nice, if slightly Ballard-centric analysis. The plan includes bike trails, bike lines, "sharrows" (pavement arrows that indicate for cars to share the line), bike shoulders and much, much more. There's a real nice section about bicycles and transit. The deadline for comments on the plan has been extended to May 18th, so take a look at it here.


Hopefully, this will help reduce car-head and piss-off the old-timer haters that have proudly put this city in statis for decades. Certainly, it doesn't please The Stranger's Erica C Barnett, but she's a little, well, unstable.

Cross-posted at the Seattle Transit Blog.

Don't Stop Moving

Yesterday afternoon, I had to get to Seattle from my job in Redmond. I had to be there at 4:30, so I left at about 3:30. I wasn't looking forward to the traffic, but I wanted to use it as an opportunity to use my zen skills.

I made an amazing accomplishment: I did not come to a full stop the entire time I was on SR-520!

The way that I accomplished this was by leaving a ton of room in from of me, and maintaining a constant (slow!) speed as much as possible. The car in front of me kept speeding up and jerking to a stop, over and over again. When they were stopped, I slowly crept toward them. When they started moving I let them pull away and kept creeping at the same speed or I accelerated a little.

The car behind me didn't have to stop either. And neither did the car behind her. When I got on the bridge, I could see pretty far back because it's straight, and I watched a whole line of cars (hundreds of them) that were all flowing together in one continuous motion.

The car directly behing me didn't leave me much room at first, but by the time we got to the bridge, she realized what was going on and started staying pretty far back from me. So cars behind her were getting a double buffer of fluid traffic.

I hear from people quite a bit "if you leave a lot of room, other cars will just fill it." The reality is that it doesn't happen as much as you'd think. A few cars will zoom in and get in front of you, but it really doesn't affect you when you're further back. And chances are they would have changed lanes at some point anyway, so this way at least they have the room they need and don't cause a backup while they change lanes.

Please start leaving room in front of your car when you're in congestion. Not only will your stress be reduced (it gives you a challenge too, which is fun) but the cars behind you will thank you too.

Drive Nice Day - Update

I understand that www.DriveNiceDay.org should be up this week. I'll post another link to it once it's up and running. Check out the cool logo.

I Am Pac-Man!

Recently there has been a spot of construction on my commute that forces the right lane to be closed. It happens to be at the top of a hill, so it's hard for people who (I'm assuming) don't drive this way every day to know it's there. I, on the other hand, know it's there and usually try and get over early. This eases my stress level because I don't have to fight, but it is annoying to see the other cars jockey for position as they merge over as late as possible.

So I tried "Pac-Manning" this morning to see what would happen. For those of you who are not aware, imagine your car is Pac-Man, and the white dots on the road are the yummy white dots you have to eat in the game.

I split the lanes (and ate up the dots) and kept my left blinker on. I did this with about 10 car-lengths in front of me before the merge light. Meanwhile I kept an eye on the rear-view mirror to watch the action.

Here's what happened: Almost immediately, cars behind me started realizing they had to merge, and put their left signals on. As more cars did this, I saw the line of blinking lights move further and further back (about 20-30 cars or so) and cars started getting over when they could. The lane behind me became clear, and more cars could see further. I watched as the cars behind me smoothly merged together and proceeded forward with a nice flow.

Usually cars fight their way into the merge, realizing after they've run out of runway that the reason for the hold-up is the closed lane. I hope to keep using this technique to make merges easier for everyone, and I encourage you to do the same.

Post a comment with your merging tips!

Please Don't Drive like This!

How fast must have this guy been going?

How bad is it?

According to the PI, Seattle's traffic is the second-worst in the nation!

We need you to be a safe, conscientious driver more than ever. I'm not saying that we don't need to improve infrastructure (we do), we just need to drive better as well. And while we're waiting for people in Olympia to get their improvement plans together, there are simple things you can do every day to make the commute better. Please tell other people to drive with Traffic Zen.

Post a link to this site, tell a friend, get a bumper sticker! We're all in this together.