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Question about drafting

Comment comment by bradsmith on 16 July 2006

Rather than assume, I'd like to ask a question about drafting. Being a swimmer, I am quite familiar with the concept. One thing that must be said for drafting however, is that the person who is leading must exert more force to maintain his/her speed than if no one were drafting behind them. Can one assume then that any gas mileage saved by one is reduced from the other. Intuition tells me that there would be a reduction, but I am not sure if it is an equal reduction. It would be cool to have stats on that... but that would be quite an undertaking.

I did like how you pointed out that drafting could (and probably would) increase accidents if adopted by the general public. That is why I asked about the ethics of it if gas mileage were reduced on the other end of it. There was nothing I hated more while swimming laps than a lazy swimmer who just drafted off me and never offered to do his/her fair share of the leading. It's just bad manners to take but not give.

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0 Nerd-Its - +
RE: Question about drafting by Anonymous :: NR0

What is the mechanism that causes the lead to have an increased load when drafting (I didn't read the full description of the method)?

Posted 17 July 2006, Hide, Parent, Reply
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RE: Question about drafting by stopgap :: NR4

At least in car racing and cycling, both parties benefit from drafting:

Posted 17 July 2006, Hide, Parent, Reply
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RE: Question about drafting by Anonymous :: NR0

When young and foolish I practiced drafting behind tractor trailers while on long haul interstate drives. I noticed that the benefits in terms of how much I had to hold down the throttle were quite noticeable as I approached the trailer's rear bumper to about 10 feet (very dangerous!). The airstream is rough and there is tremendous buffetting at that distance but you seem to be riding in the pocket of air turbulence just behind the trailer. My impression was that I had no noticeable effect on the semis and my hypothesis would be the decrease in the forward vehicle's gas mileage is much outweighed by the increase in the following vehicle's mileage. I'm too old to try to get the direct data with my car's OBDII data computer hookup (wife and son would kill me), so does anyone have solid data on that?

Posted 17 July 2006, Hide, Parent, Reply