[Xbrentx]

Foglights doh autocorrection

[DenverTaco07]

Originally Posted by Franko07

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

nope, 5 days a week in Denver 1-25 Traffic is pretty sh!tty traffic, but I suppose I have a choice of

A. Tailgate and do the slinky mash the gas and stomp the brakes idiocy, spend 10 times more on brake pads than I do and possibly cause and accident or

B. simply give the proper amount of space and if someone gets in...THEY GET IN.

do people think that nobody is allowed to get into the lane they are in? HOW DID THEY GET INTO THE LANE, magically just appeared there i guess???

it's hilarious - the "how dare you get in MY LANE" folks. I see it all the time...I put my blinker on (oh and YES I USE MY BLINKER TOO) and there's plenty of room, but as soon as someone sees I have my blinker on they stomp the gas and try to block me, i get in and all i see is them having a cow behind me. They think they are the only ones allowed to change lanes and get into the fast lane...IDK, it's just stupid.

[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by Rusty35

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

You sure about that?

I'd always heard one car per 10 mph. Or about a hundred feet at 60 mph

In practice, you're probably lucky if people behind you give you much more than one car per 20 mph even if they aren't trying to hurry you up.


Norm

[DenverTaco07]

Originally Posted by Norm Peterson

You sure about that?

I'd always heard one car per 10 mph. Or about a hundred feet at 60 mph

In practice, you're probably lucky if people behind you give you much more than one car per 20 mph even if they aren't trying to hurry you up.


Norm

the rule of thumb is 2 seconds, regardless of speed.

[Artos]

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.

Yeah, I see that...at the time of the accident, the first rig in front of me (left lane) was almost ready to pass & get in front of the slightly slower rig (right lane) After this, the roads were relatively light with traffic at time on 281.

I know a lot of us say this about our areas, but really feel the rio grande valley & deep south tx region has some of the worst / inconsiderate and/or ignorant drivers around...still, at least it's not as crowded like some of the metros some live.

[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by DenverTaco07

the rule of thumb is 2 seconds, regardless of speed.

Which corresponds to about two carlengths per 10 mph . . . for me and people of my age group, following distances were always expressed in units of linear measure rather than time.

Determining a time separation has to be newer, and it's arguably more distracting to determine because you'd have to watch the car ahead pass some fixed point, mentally count "one-mississippi, two-mississippi, etc." until you pass the same point. Two whole seconds where driving and doing this timing thing are competing for your full attention.


BTW, I still have the book I got when I took driver-ed, and it clearly mentions one car per 10 mph as being a reasonable following distance (subject to conditions). I can make a picture available if I have to.


Norm

[DenverTaco07]

Originally Posted by Norm Peterson

Which corresponds to about two carlengths per 10 mph . . . for me and people of my age group, following distances were always expressed in units of linear measure rather than time.

Determining a time separation has to be newer, and it's arguably more distracting to determine because you'd have to watch the car ahead pass some fixed point, mentally count "one-mississippi, two-mississippi, etc." until you pass the same point. Two whole seconds where driving and doing this timing thing are competing for your full attention.


BTW, I still have the book I got when I took driver-ed, and it clearly mentions one car per 10 mph as being a reasonable following distance (subject to conditions). I can make a picture available if I have to.


Norm

IDK for me it's terribly more complex to count car lengths....I am pretty good at picking a marker on the road and counting to two seconds though.

but I think the concept that should be made clear here is that:

A. tailgating is bad
B. one car length at highway speeds is terribly dangerous.

but I hear you, my understanding is that they've just updated the concept to a time based one:

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

funny, i was just reading this and:

The two-second rule is useful as it can be applied to any speed. It is equivalent to one vehicle-length for every 8 km/h (5 mph) of the current speed, but drivers can find it difficult to estimate the correct distance from the car in front, let alone to remember the stopping distances that are required for a given speed, or to compute the linear equation on the fly. The two-second rule gets around these problems, and provides a simple and common-sense way of improving road safety.

[cellsafemode]

The only time i care about what's going on behind me is when i'm changing lanes. So the entire thing is a non-issue for me.

Usually what i do see besides me and in front of me are people on their cell phones leaving huge amounts of buffer space in front of them so they dont have to pay attention to the start and stop of traffic.

Then your fender benders are for when they accidentally let this buffer get too small, since they're too busy to look up and see if traffic has changed.


I'm betting opinions on what constitutes a problem and what doesn't are directly related to where geographically you live and drive day to day.

places where aggressive driving is the norm, people dont even care because it's not being done in malice. And usually it's not. People are concerned about what's in front of them. I rarely see road rage around here.

Back when i lived in suburban PA/NJ, i'd see road rage _all_ the time. Where that kind of behavior is almost always done maliciously and the roads have 1 or 2 lanes. The kind of rage where people get out of the car at the next red light and fight. It's what happens when you have douche nozzles and/or people who have moved in from an area where their driving style was the norm and at their new home area it is not. Those people then meet up with the kind of people who think they need to police other drivers and the glorious mix of road raging battles is born. That's the daily fun of driving on the east coast of PA and into the swamps of NJ.

[interceptor]

I'm thinking this with a release mechanism might help mitigate tailgaters and a few behind them for good measure.

[DenverTaco07]

Originally Posted by cellsafemode

The only time i care about what's going on behind me is when i'm changing lanes. So the entire thing is a non-issue for me.

Usually what i do see besides me and in front of me are people on their cell phones leaving huge amounts of buffer space in front of them so they dont have to pay attention to the start and stop of traffic.

Then your fender benders are for when they accidentally let this buffer get too small, since they're too busy to look up and see if traffic has changed.


I'm betting opinions on what constitutes a problem and what doesn't are directly related to where geographically you live and drive day to day.

places where aggressive driving is the norm, people dont even care because it's not being done in malice. And usually it's not. People are concerned about what's in front of them. I rarely see road rage around here.

Back when i lived in suburban PA/NJ, i'd see road rage _all_ the time. Where that kind of behavior is almost always done maliciously and the roads have 1 or 2 lanes. The kind of rage where people get out of the car at the next red light and fight. It's what happens when you have douche nozzles and/or people who have moved in from an area where their driving style was the norm and at their new home area it is not. Those people then meet up with the kind of people who think they need to police other drivers and the glorious mix of road raging battles is born. That's the daily fun of driving on the east coast of PA and into the swamps of NJ.

You don't care if you have to come to a sudden stop on the highway and someone is barrelling down on you (or maybe on the tailgater behind you that is so close it may as well be you), runs into the back of you, injures you and pushes you into the car in front of you, making you partially liable for that damage as well?

[brAnd7onX]

Im really glad you brought this up... Living here now in Texas (Austin to be exact) and the tailgating here is starting to really get to me. I have never had so much road rage from tailgaters like this and it is just really frustrating. I can't go faster than the car in front of me and I don't want to go over the speed limit. Instead of just going around me they choose to just ride my ass the whole way. /rant over

[cellsafemode]

Originally Posted by DenverTaco07

You don't care if you have to come to a sudden stop on the highway and someone is barrelling down on you (or maybe on the tailgater behind you that is so close it may as well be you), runs into the back of you, injures you and pushes you into the car in front of you, making you partially liable for that damage as well?

no. I dont worry about what I can't control. If i have to suddenly stop, i have just as much of a chance of getting hit from behind if i'm actively concerned about people's distance behind me as I am if i dont care. I'm in my car and checked all my dials and controls and nothing i have can force other people to all maintain hundreds of feet of distance and ensure that they're paying attention so they can make use of that distance.

Actively break checking or otherwise distracting myself to try and police other people's driving behind me only makes me a factor in decreasing my own driving safety. Not increasing it. I pay attention to what's in front of me to ensure I'm not a factor in any potential accident. Which i haven't been.

I'm one of those drivers that minds my own business when driving. I dont look at other drivers. I dont study their faces. I dont rubber neck accidents. I dont care what you are doing and how you're doing it unless you're keeping me from driving the way I want to drive. My mantra is, I dont hinder how you want to drive, so I expect you not to hinder the way I want to drive and we all win. If i'm not making you slow down and have to deal with my stupid car then I'm doing a good job.

[DenverTaco07]

Originally Posted by cellsafemode

no. I dont worry about what I can't control. If i have to suddenly stop, i have just as much of a chance of getting hit from behind if i'm actively concerned about people's distance behind me as I am if i dont care. I'm in my car and checked all my dials and controls and nothing i have can force other people to all maintain hundreds of feet of distance and ensure that they're paying attention so they can make use of that distance.

Actively break checking or otherwise distracting myself to try and police other people's driving behind me only makes me a factor in decreasing my own driving safety. Not increasing it. I pay attention to what's in front of me to ensure I'm not a factor in any potential accident. Which i haven't been.

I'm one of those drivers that minds my own business when driving. I dont look at other drivers. I dont study their faces. I dont rubber neck accidents. I dont care what you are doing and how you're doing it unless you're keeping me from driving the way I want to drive. My mantra is, I dont hinder how you want to drive, so I expect you not to hinder the way I want to drive and we all win. If i'm not making you slow down and have to deal with my stupid car then I'm doing a good job.

You state that you do tailgate on purpose as to not let anyone in front of you...you consider this a good driving habit. I suppose it is fair that if you tailgate you shouldn't care if anyone tailgates you...that part makes sense i suppose.

I transport a 4 year old, so yes I actually try to be a good driver and not tailgate others, if others want to get in front of me, they get in. And yes, if someone is tailgating me...because I actually care not to have my child killed by some moron tailgating me...i have to back off even more to allow myself plenty of room to slow down and ensure the person behind me doesn't kill my child.

I understand we are going to disagree on why not letting people into 'your lane' and why tailgating is dangerous and all that...I just hope you don't find out the hard way just how dangerous it is - Good luck to you.

[DenverTaco07]

This is not just aggravating. It’s dangerous. Following too closely is a leading cause of collisions, state officials say. There were more than 31,000 crashes in North Carolina in 2015 involving drivers who followed too closely, according to a report from N.C. DOT’s Traffic Safety Unit. Eleven people died and nearly 1,000 of those wrecks involved injuries, according to the report.

Following another vehicle too closely can be a form of aggressive driving, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.