Drafting 18-wheelers....revisited

[Brian D.]

Well, I guess I should have Google'd this long ago, but I just found an interesting bit that I never thought of:

"Second, truckers hate paying your fuel costs for drafting. They know all about this, and they can actually feel a truly parasitic draft. If you were part of a NASCAR style multi-vehicle draft, where your pushing effort, as part of a line of vehicles materially reduced their parasitic air losses by pushing air back into the collapsing tail of their drag profile, you'd increase their mileage, without giving back all of your own gains, and they might tolerate you doing this; but, if you're doing what the hypermilers advocate, you're literally sucking gas from their tanks, in that what additional mileage you gain is paid by them in increased parasitic losses to fuel economy on their vehicles, and you are increasing their likelihood of being involved in an accident. Expect experienced truck drivers to shake you, or scare the living **** out of you, if you are parasitically drafting them for any length of time. And expect that your license plates are being radioed ahead several hundred miles.
posted by paulsc at 12:23 AM on January 4"

...funny, and here I always thought drafting was optimal for all drivers in the pack (until an accident occurs, of course).