|
Area lawyer Robert J. Barlow coaxes 60 to 70 miles per gallon from his Honda hybrid. |
By KELLY HANNON
Nothing remarkable stands out about Robert J. Barlow's hybrid.
It is a tan Honda Civic. There is no vanity plate. Walking through a suburban parking lot, no one would give it a second glance.
But Barlow, 50, a local attorney and former chairman of the King George County Board of Supervisors, has pushed his hybrid to achieve stupendous things.
The Environmental Protection Agency's estimated fuel efficiency for his hybrid--a 2004 model with a manual transmission--averages 40 to 41 mpg, city and highway combined.
Barlow faithfully gets 60 mpg and pushes it into the upper 70s or low 80s when he's trying hard.
Once, he drove it from Virginia to Florida before stopping for gas.
How does he do it?
"All driving technique," Barlow said.
Where some drivers mentally switch into autopilot behind the wheel, Barlow is hypervigilant.
He pays attention to changes in topography, so he can coast on downhills and accelerate as his speed declines on uphills.
When he spots a red traffic signal ahead, he slows down and coasts to the stop bar, rather than accelerating and stomping on his brakes.
"People go flying by me, and then we get to the red light and they're right next to me," Barlow said.
He keeps his tires inflated to the manufacturer's maximum allowance. "When one tire is going down I can tell," Barlow said.
On Interstate 95, he drives 60 mph in the right lane. On local roads, he coasts as long as he can without holding up traffic behind him.
Barlow compares it to playing a video game. He looks to the digital odometer to see how he's faring.
"The score's right on the dashboard," Barlow said.
The father of three teenagers--two sons, 19 and 14, and a 16-year-old daughter--was not always so adherent to a high mpg lifestyle. Before the Civic,
Barlow drove a Dodge Durango. It averaged 17 miles per gallon.
Then gas crept up to $2 a gallon. Back in 2004, this was alarming.
"You think, this is just crazy," he said.
Barlow racks up 2,500 miles a month. He drives between his Fairview Beach home and his law office on Plank Road near Spotsylvania Towne Centre, a 40-mile round trip. He's constantly in court, driving to Fredericksburg area courthouses and up and down I-95 to court in Alexandria and Richmond.
Fed up with his fuel bill, Barlow went to Pohanka Honda and bought his Civic hybrid off the lot.
Making the payments was easy, he said. His monthly gas bill from the Durango was roughly equal to his entire car payment.
"So, the car was free. All I had to do is drive," he said.
Barlow's driving style has made him a minor celebrity in the hybrid world.
He was part of a five-man team featured in a 2006 documentary on global warming that aired on HBO, "Too Hot Not to Handle." Barlow befriended several team members through greenhybrid.com, an enthusiast site for hybrid owners seeking to maximize their vehicles' mpg.
Barlow drove to Pittsburgh one Saturday in 2005 to take a turn behind the wheel attempting to set an mpg record in a Toyota Prius. He ended up driving the 2 to 6 a.m. shift, looping on a road that looked like State Route 3. "It was kind of grueling," Barlow said.
The team averaged 109 to 110 mpg in the Prius, traveling more than 1,300 miles on a single tank of gas.
Barlow appears 33 minutes into the 53-minute documentary, driving onscreen in his Civic. "I'm a conservative Republican," Barlow says, facing the camera. "I'm about as conservative as they come. But the root word of conservative is conserve."
The next scene shows Barlow pointing to his odometer.
"I just don't believe in wasting things. I don't believe in wasting my own money. I don't believe in wasting natural resources or any resources that we might have," Barlow says in a voiceover.
After that appearance, the British Broadcasting Corporation and Esso picked Barlow to appear in a public service announcement that aired overseas on the merits of hybrid ownership. They wanted an American who had switched from a gas guzzler to a hybrid, Barlow said.
It was filmed in Fredericksburg in fall 2005, and it pictured Barlow driving his Civic past Fredericksburg Baptist Church on Amelia Street, and on Prince William Parkway.
Friends living as far away as Dubai spotted it on BBC channels, he said.
Trying to exceed the EPA's estimated mpg is often referred to as hypermiling. Barlow manages to hypermile while driving in a safe manner, but not everyone does.
Last summer, AAA Mid-Atlantic was so concerned about the practice during the height of $4-a-gallon gas that it warned the public about some methods.
AAA advised drivers against inflating their tires beyond the manufacturer's maximum recommended amount.
The travel club also discourages turning off a vehicle's engine on a highway and coasting in neutral, tailgating other vehicles, rolling through stop signs, and driving at unsafe speeds.
AAA does recommend some of Barlow's practices, such as smooth, easy acceleration and braking, looking ahead to anticipate traffic conditions, and using cruise control to maintain speed.
"The one thing we want to emphasize at AAA is that people maintain the ability to make an evasive maneuver," said Martha Meade, AAA's manager of government relations and public affairs in Richmond.
Barlow is likely to buy another hybrid when the Civic gives out. That could take awhile. The Civic has 120,000 miles on it, and it's in great shape, another perk of Barlow's driving style.
"I've never had brakes replaced in this car, because I try not to touch them," Barlow said.
Kelly Hannon: 540/374-5436
Email: khannon@freelancestar.com
