CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- We all do it -- sit in our cars, stuck, waiting to make a left turn.

But if all that sitting is costing us time, then it's also costing us gas and money -- both of which Julian Robinson of UPS said you could save by simply turning right.

“When you calculate the mileage, when you look at the price of fuel, that's a big savings,” he said.

Robinson knows because UPS is saving millions of gallons of gas and tens of millions of miles by nearly eliminating left turns by its drivers.

Kyle Vitelli operates special computer software that spits out routes that give drivers right-hand turns 85 percent of the time.

“What's the advantage of taking right-hand turns?” reporter Jim Bradley asked.

“Not having to wait on traffic, less chance of accidents, saves time, you don't have to wait on lights,” Vitelli said.

UPS still makes some necessary left turns; otherwise they'd drive in circles. But instead of zigzagging to deliveries on both sides of a street at once, they stop at those on the right-hand side first and then loop around so that the others are on the right, too.

“Is this a strategy that regular drivers could employ and benefit from? Oh, they definitely could,” Robinson said.

So Eyewitness News conducted an experiment. Employees timed the drive from Channel's 9's studios on North Tryon Street to SouthPark Mall at the corner of Sharon and Fairview roads using two different routes, one from Mapquest.com and the other from UPS.

Bradley drove the Mapquest route, going from North Tryon to 11th Street, which turned into McDowell, and was bogged down continuously.

“Made it through one green light. Now here we are hitting another red,” he said.

Bradley turned left onto Stonewall, left again from Kenilworth onto Park Road and one more time at Fairview.

By the time Bradley got to SouthPark, 23 minutes had ticked by.

Vitelli’s UPS route took Interstate 277 over to Independence Boulevard to Wendover Road and then to Sharon Road.

Eyewitness News producer Frank Ryder was asked to try the route.

“It looks like you're backtracking,” he said.

“You feel like this is out of the way?” Bradley asked.

“I would, yes,” he said.

It was a longer route by a mile and a half. But smooth sailing on Independence, a right turn onto Wendover, and a single left turn onto Sharon Road had Ryder pulling past SouthPark in just 17 minutes.

“Initially I thought it might be a little slower, but having just driven it, it seemed quicker and less congested,” Ryder said.

In fact, the right-hand route was six minutes faster than the Mapquest directions.

To try your own no-left-turn strategy, Robinson said you have to think outside the box.

“Try to break away from the old paradigm that we're going to have to go this direction or that direction. There are plenty of streets in a grid where you could make right turns to where you want to go,” he said.

UPS workers said using right turns works best when you have multiple stops to make, like the doctor, the grocery store and a drug store. Organize your trip to make stops on the right-hand side of the road first and then loop around to make any other stops. It should shorten your trip and use less gas.