Hypermilers: Friends of Gaia, enemies of other motorists

So while sitting at a stoplight this evening, I observed a man sitting on his motorcycle turn the engine off. I recognized what he was doing, for I do it every time I wait for a train crossing, and last year, I tried it a couple of times waiting for stoplights myself:  He was hypermiling.  When I tried it in my old 15-year-old sport coupe, the results were not ideal:  I became the object of irritation to other motorists stuck behind me who ended up having to sit through another light while I furiously tried to get the engine on my car to start again!  A train crossing is one thing:  Usually you can see the end of the train.  If not, you can see the brake lights of the car at the front of the line as its driver sees the end of the train coming and restarts the engine.  You have time, you're not under pressure to get that bad boy to fire again.  Not so with a stoplight.  You might see the cross traffic light go yellow, but that's about it as far as warnings go.

So what happened this evening was predictable:  The green left-turn light illuminated for its brief performance, and the hypermiler in front of me is trying to kick-start his chopper.  Thanks to the delay, I barely made it into the intersection with a yellow left arrow.  I'm pretty sure the guy two cars behind me ran a red light.  As for the lover of Gaia?  Well, he celebrated his conscientiousness by kicking in the burn and putting at least a quarter-mile of distance between us.  Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

It got me to thinking, which is probably why the government has got me on a watch list:  How many gallons of fuel are being wasted by motorists stuck waiting for another light because they were stuck behind the hypermilers' whose engine may not start on the first try?