The Inside Track

Driving home from Dayton Sunday night I found myself attempting to figure out how many turns or curves it would take to notice a mileage savings in a trip if you consistently took the turns and curves on the inside lane versus the outside lane. A visual explanation might make it easier. Just like on a track where the inside lane runner is set further back on the track than the outer most person to make the race fair, the car traveling on the outside lane of the curve will have to travel a further distance than the car on the inside lane.

Here the shortest distance from the starting point to the end is represented by the blue line. Obviously on a highway, you don’t really have the option to take the blue path. The green line represents the inside lane and the yellow is the outside lane.

Granted, taking the inside lane would not improve your gas mileage because you’d still be achieving some mpg driving on the outside path. However, by taking the shorter route, you end at the same location having used less gas to get there.

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