Use the "three Ps" for extra safety. Prepare for the winter season with regular maintenance checks. Protect yourself by buckling up and using correctly installed child safety seats. Prevent road accidents by being alert, slowing down and avoiding driving while tired.

Get the junk out of the trunk.

Salem recommends removing unnecessary winter supplies such as bags of salt and tire chains from the trunk of your vehicle.

"The dead weight found in the trunk of many cars can be equivalent to a full-size man. Get that bag of old newspapers to the recycling bin," he says. "Your vehicle will require less energy to move without the dead weight. So ask yourself if you really need to be transporting around that card table, set of golf clubs or storage container."

Keep air in your tires.

"Remember what it was like riding your bike as a child with half-flat tires?" asks Salem. "It was hard to get the bike moving. Once you inflated the tires, your bike was like a new sports car; it went faster with far less effort. Your car feels the same pain when the tires are at, say, 28 psi instead of the recommended 35 psi. Just to be clear: not every tire should be inflated to 35 psi. Look for the recommended psi rating on a label on your driver's door or in the glove box."

Use the right motor oil for your vehicle.

Salem notes that the importance of using good motor oil cannot be overstated. To illustrate this point, he suggests trying a simple exercise.

"Take your hands and place them together with palms touching," he says. "Then rub the palms against each other quickly. Feel that warmth generated by friction? That's exactly what is happening inside your engine. If you rubbed your hands together like that for an hour, you'd probably do some damage to your hands. And you'd also have to work much harder to rub your hands together."

If you put motor oil between those two sliding surfaces, Salem notes, a lot of that friction goes away, and the engine doesn't have to work as hard. As a result, an engine is more fuel efficient.

"But not every motor oil is created equal," said Salem. "Some last longer than others and some promote better fuel economy. For example, last year ExxonMobil introduced a new high endurance motor oil to its Mobil 1 brand of synthetic motor oils -- Mobil 1 Extended Performance, which is guaranteed for 15,000 miles. The Mobil 1 brand also has two viscosity grades that specifically help promote greater fuel economy -- Mobil 1 0W-20 and Mobil 1 0W-30."

Keep your vehicle clean.

"Believe it or not, that layer of dirt on your exterior creates drag that, over long distances, hurts your miles-per-gallon count," says Salem. He points out that keeping your vehicle washed and waxed will improve its aerodynamics, improving your fuel economy. "And you'll feel good about driving around in a clean vehicle," he adds.

Consider the best option for ventilation.

Conventional wisdom says that cars are always more fuel-efficient when the air conditioner is off. Salem disagrees. "On long trips or highway driving, using the air conditioner is actually more fuel efficient than rolling down the windows," he says. "When driving fast, open windows create a drag that forces the engine to work harder to maintain speed. For short trips or in city traffic, roll down the windows and enjoy the breeze, but on the highway, turn on the air."

Barnes, a 29-year veteran of UPS who started sorting packages while in college, told me how UPS expects to save $600 million per year through package flow technologies, which will enable a reduction of 100 million travel miles in the U.S. alone, which equates to 14 million gallons of fuel, he said. The package flow optimization includes constant wireless communications via the DIADs, smart labels (including RFID in the future) and preloading vehicles and directing drivers according to advanced analytics that calculate the most efficient routes, including avoiding left-hand turns, based on the package load.

"The best advice that we can give motorists is check the antifreeze levels," Neosho Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep Service Manager Mike Claypoole said. "In this area, the vehicle's antifreeze level should be able to go down to negative 35 degrees to negative 40 degrees."

Thermal shock is the term engineers use to describe the stress caused by drastic differences in outdoor and indoor temperatures. If the vehicle has a small ding in the windshield, thermal shock can cause the minor ding to turn into a major crack. The cost of repairing the small ding is minimal, compared to replacing an actual windshield.

This is gonna hurt. From all our testing, the most successful method for saving gas is: you. And we're talking massive fuel economy gains. Think you need a hybrid? Well, chances are you've got hybrid-style mileage improvements already in your gas pedal foot. Don't mash the gas pedal when you stop and start. Take the long view of the road and brake easy. This tip alone can save you unbelievable amounts of gas. We found that if you slowed your 0-to-60 time down to 20 seconds from a normal city driving pace of 10 to 15 seconds, you'll feel the savings immediately.

I would like to suggest a trip to Sears for the purpose of purchasing a spring-loaded center punch, aka power punch. If you are unfortunate enough to find yourself trapped in a vehicle underwater, you need only to hold the point of the punch against the window, and push to load the spring. Presto -- no more window. This method works equally well on the side and rear windows of a car, but not as well on the windshield because it's a different kind of safety glass. The punch can be taped to the inside of a console, or anyplace else where it will be easy to find in an emergency.