If you have GPS, you can use it right now to help you save gas when you drive. If not, GPS is not expensive anymore. It’s well under $200 for a well known brand name that does the job and does it well.

1. Set route preference for quickest and not shortest

In the vast majority of GPS devices you have two options for route preference; the quickest or the shortest.

One would assume the shortest is better for saving gas.

Not necessarily.

There are times when the shortest route from point A to B includes many side streets filled with stop signs that increase the stop’n'go and waste fuel rather than save it.

Usually it is better to set your GPS unit to quickest route preference.

2. Use waypoints, use them often

In most GPS units these are called locations or favorites. No matter what they are called, they’re waypoints.

You have the ability to mark hundreds of waypoints in any GPS device. Mark all the locations you normally go to including home (obviously), work, the grocery, any shops/stores you visit and so on.

When running errands or the like, use the GPS to go from place to place you have marked even if you’ve been to these places 1000 times before. Being that the GPS is set to quickest route preference it will most likely introduce to you new ways to get to these places in less periods of time; this saves fuel.

3. Try alternative routes

This tip is for commuters specifically that use highways to get to and from work.

Chances are that there is always one specific section of the highway that gets blocked up and/or bottlenecked every day. During this time the highway turns into a parking lot and you’re sitting there with the engine idling and wasting gas.

You can avoid this entirely by usually taking the exit ramp right before the spot that always gets blocked up, then take non-highway roads to get home or skirt around the bottleneck then re-enter the highway.

The way in which to do this is easy. Just use waypoints.

For example, if you wanted to use the method when you exit then re-enter the highway, the first waypoint would be the exit ramp and the second waypoint the entrance ramp after the bottleneck.

Under most circumstances this will save fuel because you’re keeping the car moving. Granted, this doesn’t always work but hey, it doesn’t hurt to try.

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