[cellsafemode]

everything in driving is a relative risk. If I had a choice between a highway with a 55mph speed limit vs a 75, i'd choose the 75 every time, even though the 55 is a lower speed and slower speeds are safer.

I drive in high traffic areas and if you leave more than a car length in front of you, you're just going to get cut off by someone that will squeeze in front of you if there's a tiny chance that your lane is going to move a little faster than theirs. So i judge the risks and find that eliminating that option is safer.

That's the reality of highways with 5-6 lanes that will go from wide open to congested as you approach and leave areas of onramps. That whole car length for every 10mph thing is nonsense that gets thrown out real fast.

It's a weighted risk that i find reasonable.

edit: i find that there's a big difference between aggressively driving behind someone to try and force them to either speed up or pull over and driving with traffic closely.

[DenverTaco07]

i just let people in, after all, that is how i get into other lanes. 95% of the time those wanting to get into the fast lane will go as fast as the car in front of them.

I drive 60 miles 5 days a week in Denver I -25 traffic. Me letting a handfull of people into the fast lane ahead of me doesnt keep me from getting to my destination any later than i would have otherwise.

[LibertyHill]

If anyone needs a nice visual on how this works here you go:

GM splitter taken out by a gator enroute to fest. Lesson learned!!

[Rusty35]

Originally Posted by DenverTaco07

yeah dangerous.

traffic safety norm is 2 seconds length between cars is min safe. at 65 MPH, that is xxxx feet. let me math for a minute.

holy crap my math...190 feet???

5280 × 65 = feet per hour, ÷ 60 minutes ÷ 60 seconds = feet per second? × 2 = 190???

5mph is 14 feet in 2 seconds.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-second_rule

I have always heard 1 car per 5mph so that is pretty close.

[DenverTaco07]

i mean, it's not like i'm some saint on the road, but i do believe i'm one of a small percentage who actually pays attention, lets people merge in, gives space etc. not perfect, but man tailgating and riding folks asses is simply dangerous and pointless. oh and likely you are spending more on brake pads. my 2013 Pilot with 70,000 on the clock was just in for service and they didn't need to be replaced yet, i see tail gaters hitting their brakes 20 times to my one time.

[RenegadeXR]

I've been trying to think of the best tactics for tailgaters. Brake checking is very dumb and leads to accidents, but I am testing new methods to signal people to back off. I have rapid-fire tail lamps on my 5th gen, so these usually get peoples attention as they flash every time I tap the brakes. If that fails, I use the hazards for a couple seconds for a longer burst.

Today when driving home from work, a white early 2000s Impala was riding my ass and almost playing a game to see if it could maintain a constant 3 inches off my bumper, speeding up and braking with me in direct sync. I was worried the guy would eventually miscalculate and rear end me at the next light, so I flashed him for the 3rd time and raised my hand out the window, gesturing "move back" with the same confidence as a police officer directing traffic. I extended my arm out the window positioned similarly to how you would to manually signal for a tight turn, but flattened my palm toward him and made a "pushing back" gesture a few times in brisk movements. He eventually got the message and actually backed off after that.

[F_Two]

Originally Posted by cellsafemode

There's tailgaters and driving in traffic. I think some people confuse the two.

I'll drive in traffic with half a car length behind the person in front of me. Maybe 1 car length if we're actually moving at speed in traffic.

That's just heavy traffic driving.

If traffic is light, there's no need to keep such a tight grouping, so i dont.

The real problem tailgators are tailgating as a form of road rage. There's rage already there and that's why they decide to do it, so everything from that point on is a bad decision and will likely lead to more bad choices. That's what causes those kinds of accidents. Driving angry.

edit: Now as far as what someone is doing to me? I don't care if someone is driving on my bumper or not. I dont control how other people drive and I dont try to. If I'm not in the wrong by driving too slow or driving in the left lane ...then it's not my problem and not my concern.

Originally Posted by cellsafemode

everything in driving is a relative risk. If I had a choice between a highway with a 55mph speed limit vs a 75, i'd choose the 75 every time, even though the 55 is a lower speed and slower speeds are safer.

I drive in high traffic areas and if you leave more than a car length in front of you, you're just going to get cut off by someone that will squeeze in front of you if there's a tiny chance that your lane is going to move a little faster than theirs. So i judge the risks and find that eliminating that option is safer.

That's the reality of highways with 5-6 lanes that will go from wide open to congested as you approach and leave areas of onramps. That whole car length for every 10mph thing is nonsense that gets thrown out real fast.

It's a weighted risk that i find reasonable.

edit: i find that there's a big difference between aggressively driving behind someone to try and force them to either speed up or pull over and driving with traffic closely.

This is a lot like a "how to survive Southern California Traffic" PSA.

[Egon]

Originally Posted by LibertyHill

If anyone needs a nice visual on how this works here you go:

GM splitter taken out by a gator enroute to fest. Lesson learned!!

I had something similar to this happen to me a few months ago. Had a semi two lanes to my right and ahead while I was in the fast lane. He hit a pallet someone dropped in the road, it exploded and it shot debris two lanes over ahead of me. Since I like to keep a cushion around me incase I need to make quick maneuvers I was able to avoid most of it but caught a small piece that scratched the lower part of my front fascia. Funnily enough if I had been tailgating the semi I probably wouldn't have had anything happen to me as he disintegrated everything in his lane.

I despise tailgaters but a fairly large amount of the tailgating that occurs could be eliminated if people would just use the left lane only for passing and let faster traffic through. BTW a 2 second follow distance is generally going to be enough of a cushion for following instead of trying to calculate how many car lengths per mph. As your speed increases the 2 second distance will increase as well.

[Curr]

I got rear ended twice in a week in my truck. Low speed, no real damage to me, but them... heh... Pay attention dipshits and put your f*cking phones down.

[Billabongi]

Originally Posted by Artos

I know most of us avoid this simply to avoid getting any rock dinks & not smart to do in general, but it cost someone today.

I was in the 3/4 ton company truck on the hwy in the left lane behind a big rig going 75 & he was passing another big rig going 74.5...nothing you can do but hurry up & wait on these deals, right??

Well, what appeared to be a rather new gen6 was trying to get in the bed of my truck for some reason & didn't get a chance to see / take evasive action from a good size piece of big rig re-tread they are always tossing. (I call them gators) The rig straddled it easy & I barely cleared it...the Camaro, not so much & peeled off right away to asses the damage.

Anyway, thought I would pass it along...I was actually a little too close to the rig myself & really didn't have any room to do anything, but may have been able to save the guy behind me if I was a bit further back.

I'm curious, were the right hand lanes wide open? I visited Texas for a week last year and there was a constant issue of vehicles just chillin in the fast lanes doing the speed limit or under while the right hand lanes were wide open. Saw this in Houston, Dallas & Austin so it seemed to be a common issue.

[solarstingray]

in Orlando traffic if you don't tail gate 4 cars will shove them selves in front of you !!! I hate tailgators =>

[LibertyHill]

Originally Posted by Billabongi

I'm curious, were the right hand lanes wide open? I visited Texas for a week last year and there was a constant issue of vehicles just chillin in the fast lanes doing the speed limit or under while the right hand lanes were wide open. Saw this in Houston, Dallas & Austin so it seemed to be a common issue.

I make better time in the right lane and now call it the fast lane. Entitlement leftists own the left lanes in the cities. Worse in Austin.

[Franko07]

Originally Posted by solarstingray

in Orlando traffic if you don't tail gate 4 cars will shove them selves in front of you !!! I hate tailgators =>

Due too, I guess these non "tailgaters" don't drive in traffic all day everyday.

[Xbrentx]

My old bmw had rear footlights have them in Europe hit those at night they get the message hehe