Cost of getting in front

When someone runs completely out of following distance in lane 1, then forces his way into lane 2, then mashes the throttle to get out in front, then gets back over in lane 1 and brakes all that speed back down (to avoid ramming whatever it was that was holding up the "slow" driver), how much is the aggressive driver (or his employer) spending for the privilege?

Cost (in fuel, possibly maintenance also if that can be easily quantified) to hammer-down to go from 45-70 in a variety of situations - main variables would be weight, grade, equipment spec. Possibly would be interesting to see every realistic situation laid out in spreadsheet form.

For comparison, the costs (in each situation) to relax and maintain speed would also be helpful.

I've been curious about this for a while and would like to know just how badly industry-standard drivers are nickel-and-diming themselves.

 

My preliminary testing suggests it is a significant cost: My fleet-spec tractor reported an "instant" 3.3 mpg while accelerating from 55-65, with a light load over about 0.4 miles (usually I see it in the 9-10.5 mpg range when cruising at low speed). With a bit of hand-waving, I arrived at a guesstimate at a baseline somewhere around an eigth of a gallon of excess fuel consumption for 45-65 (versus cruising at 45). I don't trust the "instant" fuel consumption reporting, but only because I don't know precisely what that means (or if it can meaningfully be extrapolated).

I can see this is being insignificant, but only if the driver doing it is able to consistently stay off the brakes.

I might sometime later sending an email to the podcast that popped up on an Internet search for "Kevin Rutherford". It doesn't appear to be a directly searchable website, so I'll have to listen in on a few shows first to make sure it's a suitable issue to raise.