Proof that bad driving costs you money

It's long been known that driving badly increases fuel consumption;  but I've never seen that formally quantified.  According to Time magazine, GM recently tried to do just that.

To prove just how big of an impact driving habits and vehicle maintenance have on a car’s mileage and fuel costs, General Motors recently conducted an experiment in which two of its fuel-economy engineers commuted to work in identical Chevy Cruze LTs. In this morality tale, one engineer (Beth Nunning) was the bad driver who sped on the highway and floored the gas and pounded on the brakes in traffic, while her counterpart (Ann Wenzlick) demonstrated more exemplary driving habits.

Much like the fable of the tortoise and the hare, it’s the steady and conscientious, if slow of foot, competitor who comes out the clear winner. Wenzlick, who used cruise control and maxed out at 70 m.p.h. on the highway, compared with Nunning’s 80 m.p.h., averaged 37 m.p.g., according to GM. At Wenzlick’s pace, a tank of gas in the Cruze would last 575 miles, and she could expect to pay $1,621 per year to fuel up.

Nunning, on the other hand, drove like a jerk, hammering on the brake and gas pedals and going over the speed limit. The car’s tires were underinflated by 5 lb. each, and the trunk was filled with 240 lb. of unnecessary stuff. She also wasted gas by doing things like keeping the windows open on the highway and idling at the drive-through for 15 minutes to order a coffee, instead of parking the car and going inside. Nunning’s numbers came in at just 21 m.p.g., for 325 miles per tank. That would work out to a yearlong cost in gas of $2,857 — $1,236 more than Wenzlick’s cost.

There's more at the link.

That's a pretty impressive differential, but I note it includes things like parking and going inside to order a coffee rather than idling in the vehicle ordering lane.  I've always done that, not for the sake of fuel economy, but because for many years I lived in a high-terrorist-threat environment (which works wonders for your paranoia, believe me!).  As a result, I still feel claustrophobically vulnerable if I'm stuck in a line of cars, unable to move in a hurry if something goes wrong.  Equally, in areas prone to landmine blasts, many drivers half-filled their tires with water.  It wouldn't stop the blast destroying your vehicle, but it did dampen the flash and flame, substantially reducing the seriousness of some injuries.  (It also halved your tires' useful life, ruined your truck's fuel economy, impaired its handling and rusted its wheels from the inside out, but under the circumstances those weren't exactly critical considerations!)

Note to GM:  when driving in a conflict zone, fuel economy tends to be relatively low on one's list of priorities - and in later life, when one's able to drive in a non-conflict zone, old habits die hard . . . Sorry about that!





Peter