Eking Out That Last Gallon

Want to know the secret of getting the absolute best economy out of your car in these times of unfeasibly high petrol prices? Cornering quickly.

Now I don't mean the sort of cornering quickly that you'll see at a race track on a Sunday (or outside your local Mcdonalds drive-thru on a Saturday night) which combines late hard braking with vicious acceleration because that isn't really going to boost your mileage one bit.

The sort of cornering I'm talking about involves carrying as much as speed as possible all the way through the corner - whether it be a roundabout or road deviation - to minimise braking and acceleration either side of the said corner.

The trick is to come off the gas at a point approaching the corner where the impact of friction and drag will cause the car to slow gently to the fastest possible speed that is safe to negotiate the corner. The more speed you carry through the corner, the less you have to accelerate out of it, the better your mileage. In an ideal world you'd be cornering right on the limit of the adhesion of your tyres, but in the real world safety considerations will temper your entry speed - especially on a blind corner.

Nevertheless turning in a 5-10% improvement in your mileage should be relatively easy to do if you use this technique ruthlessly.