Word of the Year 2008: Hypermiling

Every year, the New Oxford American Dictionary announces its word of the year: "hypermiling."

“Hypermiling” was coined in 2004 by Wayne Gerdes, who runs this web site. “Hypermiling” or “to hypermile” is to attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one’s car and one’s driving techniques. Rather than aiming for good mileage or even great mileage, hypermilers seek to push their gas tanks to the limit and achieve hypermileage, exceeding EPA ratings for miles per gallon.

Many of the methods followed by hypermilers are basic common sense—drive the speed limit, avoid hills and stop-and-go traffic, maintain proper tire pressure, don’t let your car idle, get rid of excess cargo—but others practiced by some devotees may seem slightly eccentric:

• driving without shoes (to increase the foot’s sensitivity on the pedals)
• parking so that you don’t have to back up to exit the space
• “ridge-riding” or driving with your tires lined up with the white line at the edge of the road to avoid driving through water-filled ruts in the road when it’s raining

Other words of the year finalists and shortlist include: frugalista, topless meeting (not what you think), carrotmob, link bait and so on.

Link - Thanks Rebecca Ford!

Previously on Neatorama: 2007 Word of the Year: Locavore


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Got a prius this past june......tried to drive like a rational conservative driver, you know getting 60 MPG and all that, but after a week or so the novelty wore off, so now I drive like an asshole to get home as fast as I can on the mass pike, from Boston to Spencer, and I still get 45-47 mpg.......
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I'd have to agree with senor and sigh...just for that one person to dangerously get a little more MPG, they create traffic and abrupt a normal steady flow, stealing time / gas / energy from all other drivers on the road.

and more accidents are probably because driving too slow is just as dangerous as driving too fast, and so traffic in an attempt to flow around the one idiot going way too slow to get that extra mile can cause dangerous situations for all the other drivers.
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Sigh:
As you wish!
There has NEVER been an accident involving Hypermiling as the cause. There have been MANY accidents with people driving 65 on a 65mph road and get rear ended by someone running 90.
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