My Prius Makes Me a Worse Driver

My Prius makes me a worse driver.

There, I said it.

There's nothing wrong with the car. This problem is not mechanical or electrical in nature. The Prius offers a touch screen display to access different features such as the radio and climate control. One feature calculates miles per gallon. It displays your current usage, averages your mpg every 5 minutes, and a histogram displays your trip data.

I am forever going for the high score. I am now that annoying person on the road who's speed varies more than it should. It's a compulsion. I thought it was mildly distracting at first, but now I can't help myself. I sacrifice steady driving for mileage readily.

Obviously, acceleration and hills kill gas. This means that I don't constantly accelerate and maintain a single speed. Instead, I speed up a little on downhills so that I can let off the gas and slowly lose the built up speed on the uphill. I have to maintain my speed somewhat to stay with traffic, but my eyes constantly wander to the display. I've managed a high score floating around 50 miles per gallon for short periods of time, but short grocery  store runs and speeding up to merge with traffic usually keep my average in the 44-45 mpg range.

There's something in my brain that forces me to do this. Whenever I see that I'm getting less than 25 mpg my foot reflexively comes off the accelerator. The efficiency-oriented region of my brain recoils from the idea that I'm wasting my gas, or maybe it's just the game aspect and I hate thinking I'm 'scoring' that low below what I could be averaging. It's a strange compulsion that never existed back when I was lucky to get 20 mpg in my 5.0 mustang (that was a different kind of fun!).

If you see a Prius varying speed in front of you it may be me. You can honk all you want, but I'll be busy shooting for a new high score.