As many of my regulars will have noticed, I have a fascination with the Toyota Prius. Being quite possibly the ugliest car in North America save the Pontiac Aztek, you are definitely making a statement by owning this car. Though you may not face the same ridicule as Geodesic home owners or those Crazy-Commutin' Recumbent bike-riding professors, you are definitely sacrificing style for a few less trips to the gas pump.

The obsession with coasting started with my beloved Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, a 4000 lb. behemoth that has a lot of what physicists like to call "inertia". The car was simply awesome, had awesome torque and could tote 5 mustache-wearing guys to lunch with no problem (I will add a link to a future post regarding this matter).

Coasting happens here

But it really shined when you took your foot off the accelerator pedal. It would simply continue to roll for what seemed to be ages, and provided some home-grown fun for a while. My dear earth-wife hated the coasting game, and just plain hated the car because it was what I brought her home from the hospital in with our newborn earth son. Being a real police car, the rear doors handles were disabled so she was unable to exit the car unassisted. Though she didn't like that feature of the car, the spit-protectant plastic on the rear seats would later come in handy once we switched off breast milk and to formula.

I eventually tired of driving 5-10 miles under the speed limit everywhere I went (everyone I followed thought I was running their plates) so I made the ridiculous  measured decision to buy a brand new C230 Mercedes-Benz. It was a gorgeous 6-speed manual, and had a nice MPG readout on the heads-up diplay. So I could drive to and from work, coasting where I could, accelerating gently where I had to, trying to keep my city driving up above 32.5 mpg- a frequent average for me.

Unforeseen medical expenses guilt forced me to sell the Mercedes so I bought another coasting legend, the 2001 Ford Crown Victoria LX (civilian version). Though it wasn't quite as heavy as the Police Interceptor, I found I could easily coast the 2.5 miles from the Raven Ridge and Falls of the Neuse intersection all the way to my driveway. I will add a video of this incredible 2.5 mile coast at some point. It can all be done legally with the exception of the 2nd to last right hand turn, at which I'm really beginning to lose speed and must blow through a stop sign to get into my driveway. Unfortunately, there is a city police detective who lives right at the corner and always has his car parked directly by this stop sign. I was obviously more comfortable making that illegal turn in the Police Interceptor, slightly less in the 2001 Ford Crown Vic and my current vehicle (which I don't recommend for coasting), an Audi A3 is just begging to be ticketed for illegal coasting or something.

But the point of the story is, no matter the car, I will always be coasting. Cause I'm green and want to "save the planet". If you can't afford or stand the Toyota Prius, but still feel moved by the plight of the earth, please try and coast as much as me- the earth will thank you for it.