Adapt your vehicle and driving habits to combat rising gas prices
If you want to keep your warm-weather plans in place and your spending on track, it's important to be smart about fuel consumption. Not everyone can afford to buy a new, ultra-fuel-efficient car, so making adjustments to your existing vehicle - and your driving habits - can help you stretch the dollars you spend at the pump.
- Drive mindfully: If you're used to speeding up fast and braking at the last moment, you need to reconsider how you're operating your vehicle - those habits can drain your gas tank and send you back to the pump more often. Instead, make a conscious effort to accelerate and slow down gradually and use cruise control to maintain a constant speed, all of which will help to use fuel more efficiently. When possible, avoid idling and make plans for running errands, to cut down on the number of trips you take.
- Reduce drag: If you drive a truck, smoothing out the aerodynamics of your truck with a truck bed cover or a tonneau cover can make a big difference in fuel consumption.
Pinole woman saves dog dragged by truck on Vallejo freeway
VALLEJO -- For an animal lover, it was a horrific sight -- a young dog on a rope being dragged on pavement outside a pickup barreling down the freeway.
Angie Porter still cries when she talks about it, and her son has nightmares nearly a week after they followed the truck, and then found the dog, since nicknamed Freeway, left for dead on an Interstate 780 offramp.
It's a morning that neither Porter nor her son will likely forget.
Now, they hope for a happy ending to Freeway's story.
Porter, a Pinole resident, took the I-780 exit toward Benicia off Interstate 80 about 7:45 a.m. April 19 and got behind a black pickup with tinted windows.
Both she and her 13-year-old son, River, noticed something flapping near the truck. To their horror, they quickly realized it was a tethered young dog bouncing against the vehicle and dragging its feet on the pavement.
For nearly a mile, Porter followed the truck. She and her son screamed, and she sounded her horn to get the driver to pull over.
The truck bed cover can even be locked into position every 12 inches for a half-open, half-closed option. As if that weren't easy enough, Pace Edwards made
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