It’s a nice thought, but it has so many modifiers it’s pretty much worthless. Everything from road conditions, to time of day or night, to the size and weight and type of vehicle you are driving, to how old you are affects stopping distance and the interval you should be leaving.
Remember children - Driving should never be “relaxing.” It’s real work and demands your total concentration to protect yourself and everyone around you. So put the phone down and even turn off the radio. Put your head on a swivel like a fighter pilot. And have an escape plan for every inch you drive.
I don’t know why you are being downvoted since the distance from other cars should absolutely reflect the current conditions. I also agree that to drivers need to proactively look for possible collisions in mirrors and blind spots, though they should be generally calm and patient when driving.
Driving isn’t supposed to be as stressful as this comment put it. If it is then you shouldnt be allowed to drive.
I didn’t say it should be stressful, I said it should be “work.” There is a big difference.
I leave 2-3 seconds following distance minimum on interstate highways.
“Only a fool breaks the 2 second rule.”
I was taught to repeat that phrase, at a normal steady pace, when I saw the back of their car go past something, to use as a marker (a signpost, the end of one of the lines on the road, whatever).
If you finish the phrase after the front of your car has gone past the same marker, then you don’t have a big enough braking distance and need to ease off a bit.
I think you mean a 1/10 of a second. (Local drivers, apparently)
I think my biggest pet peeve about driving is when you come to a stop and the car behind you tries to shove their nose up your ass. Like bruh you don’t need to ever be that close
Maybe they just really love the smell of exhaust and are trying to get high off of your emissions
Then get out and suck my tailpipe but stay off my ass lmao
At a stop? Who cares? Can’t being closer together at a stop light at least help with intersections? I guess it depends on the city.
If you’re driving a manual and you roll back on a stop, you shouldn’t be driving a manual. Unless you live in like San Francisco I guess? In the Appalachian region, cops will stop you for rolling back.
Ever heard of clear distance? If you’re at a stop and someone rear ends you and you hit the car in front of you you are at fault and will be held liable.
As for the rollback in my state they’ll again look at distance. Because if I don’t have enough space to back up because you’re too close you’re once again at fault for not having clear distance.
On top of all that it helps move traffic along faster. You don’t have to wait as long to accelerate if you maintain distance because you don’t have to wait for the car in front of you to move far enough to start accelerating.
Getting bumper to bumper has zero benefits outside of the false psychological feeling of forward progress.
My driving instructor taught me that I should still be able to see the other car’s back wheels when I stop. I actually don’t know how close that looks from the other driver’s perspective.
Terrible, terrible advice. That leaves a full car-length of empty pavement with the driver sight-lines of modern SUV and crossover designs. Pickup trucks are worse; I’ve seen pickup truck drivers stop a full 30 feet back. It wastes huge amounts of space on the street, and causes traffic congestion. On the other side of the coin, van and bus drivers can still get right up on your ass when following this advice.
I hate breathing in pollution so I keep a car’s length between me and the next car at traffic lights. Cars themselves are a huge storming waste of space and I hate being in or around cars with all my heart and soul so if I make traffic worse then I will consider it a passive form of protesting against car dependency
What it looks like:
Not actually as the “see the tires” rule is fairly good advise. Keep in mind sometimes it is smarter to give a little more space depending on the situation. Think of it as more of a minimum. Also lose most of your speed farther back and then role forward. This allows for recovery time in case of failure or loss of traction.
if they are following the two second rule they should be less than a foot from your car. If your car is stopped you are always more than two seconds from the car in front of you.
Never heard of that rule. I was always taught to leave enough space that you can see the bottom of their back tires.
The two second rule is for following distance. Applying it to stopped cars makes no sense at all, but it is funny . You have it right.
Ah I misunderstood. I understand it now.
I leave enough space to be able to drive around them if I need to
I can’t believe this comedy gold is not upvoted more. Maybe it needs /s?
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I drive a 6 speed. This is where my rage for this comes from.
But even in automatics rollback isn’t uncommon on an incline.
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I feel like it really isn’t your fault if you role back 6 inches and hit them. If you were to roll back 4 feet it would be different but in this case you can’t control something so small.
In court it won’t be your fault if they’re that close, but it’s still the hassle of dealing with people who don’t understand basic driving etiquette.
Id get that close if I want to give the phone enjoyer behind me plenty of time to stop
So you can hit the car in front of you too?
It’s not only a safety hazard but it leads to slower traffic. If you maintain the right distance at a stop the whole line of cars can accelerate faster because you don’t have to wait as long for the car ahead of you to move. There are zero actual benefits of sniffing my ass at a stop.
phone enjoyer is ungovernable
That doesn’t mean you should be acting like an asshat yourself.
It takes two to tango
calm down
Weird guy is right though. Best practice is to leave enough space so that in the event you get rear ended you don’t get shoved into the car in front of you.
fair point
Intelligent people leave a space of about two cars ahead of them on the freeway.
Stupid people think that space must be for them.
Intelligent people leave a whole fucking lot more than just two car lengths.
I think they’re saying 2 car lengths when in heavy traffic going 20 mph. I hope…
Back when i drove. I was taught 3 car lengths, or 3 seconds. Whichever is greater.
Two car lengths isn’t even remotely enough space if you’re traveling at high speeds.
Yeah, I follow the 3 second rule and try to keep 3 seconds of travel distance between me and the car in front of me
This is it. Absolute minimum two seconds in perfect conditions, four if it’s raining/dark/whatever.
It depends.
On a well developed well maintained “freeway” with multiple lanes, shoulders for break downs, gentle curves, et cetera it’s common. 3 car lengths is more common here I think.
That said, on a “highway” (interstate?) without everything listed above I aim for 2 seconds, which is about 60 metres at highway speed.
You can’t do this in LA, but LA fucking sucks so fuck 'em haha.
What I don’t get is the current trend of leaving 1-2 car lengths at traffic lights. At first I thought it was maybe all the new cars with their assisted driving features. But I’ve seen older cars do it too.
You should be able to see the tires (generally) of the car ahead of you. That means you can easily / quickly turn out if the car ahead is stalled or something.
It also means you might not rear end the car ahead of you if someone hits you
Should be about one car length for every 10mph. On a highway unless you’re going slow that would be too close.
Yeah, but what about 0 mph?
It’s in case some jackass on their phone rear ends you, if you’re too close you’ll get pushed into the car in front of you. IIRC you can be liable for the damages to the car in front of you while stopped if a multiple car accident happens.
I leave one, maybe one and a halfwhen stopped. I like having ample room to GTFO if I need to.
Cars are getting bigger, but people aren’t getting taller (as fast). Little granny can barely see her hood over the steering wheel so she needs to leave 2.75 miles of space between her and the car in front.
Little granny needs to jack up her seat to its maximal height. And maybe get a booster seat if necessary. Either that or a periscope.
This one terrifies me every time… When you pass a car going the opposite way, and it basically looks wike the steering wheel have a wig on… It’s always an old woman… Can they even see the road? Or are they navigating using the sky?
You don’t need to leave a crazy amount of space when stopped at a traffic light, but you still should be leaving some. So if someone rear ends you, it minimizes the risk of your car then smashing into the person in front of you, so it reduces the risk of additional people being involved in an accident.
On the other hand if you’re in a real city and someone is already behind you, please pull up tight. That way someone else farther back can make a light or turn lane.
That’s a thing? Seems pretty silly to me. You need space but not that much.
What annoys me here is that people will enter the intersection before traffic on the other side has a chance to clear thus blocking the road when the light changes.
I also don’t think the people who speed though the turn light. The light turns green and I have to sit and wait for traffic to clear
That’s a big enough issue that it is illegal in some cities with signs posted, “Don’t block the box.”
To be fair sometimes the timing of the light is problematic. However, if you see that there are cars ahead you should not enter the intersection
My car’s “smart cruise control” leaves what seems to be around a car length for every 10 mph, which is what I remember hearing in driving school. Feels a bit excessive in practice, but I also never feel like I’m being an asshole so I’m okay with it.
I was rear ended, HARD once. That distance gave me the space to control both my vehicle, and the one that hit me. It turned a potential multi car, multi lane pileup into a 2 vehicle wreck, either 1 more dinged car.
The space isn’t for the 99.999% of the time, but that 0.001% OH FUCK time.
I almost had that happen to me a year ago. Traffic had stopped on the interstate and I hear skrrt, skrrt, skrrt, skrrt getting closer and closer to me. I looked up in my mirror and see a Silverado rapidly closing the distance and thought “god damn it”. I fortunately left enough room between me and the car in front of me that I was able to give him some more space and turned a full on collision into a tap that didn’t do any damage. Pretty sure my foot was actually off the brake when he hit me and that helped absorb some of it as well. I was still pretty pissed though because I had more than enough time to think about all these things and consider moving onto the shoulder but I thought he would do that instead and still hit me with how fast he was going. Being an idiot, he did not and hit me anyway.
I’ve dodged similar collisions a couple of times, over the years. Unfortunately, this time, she didn’t even touch the brakes. I was hit with a 50 mph differential, and no warning whatsoever.
OH FUCK time.
I live for those moments
Do you wreck your car often?
Well you want the automated system to be overly safe usually. It is better than the other way around.
Having more space also gives the driver the to react.
Lord I hate those fucking cunts who see two car lengths of space as an invitation. I’m going 85, you’re going 75, don’t suddenly hop in front of me because the clown in front of you is going 70.
The gap you leave should be speed-dependent and about 2 seconds to allow for reaction time. Yes, this caps the highway’s capacity to 0.5 cars per second per lane but roads are inherently inefficient.
3 seconds is the guideline I’ve been taught here in Sweden, but yeah. Riding too close is crazy dangerous and I don’t understand why people keep doing it.
Aye, and 2 seconds is the bare minimum. A company I have worked for wanted 4 seconds between you and the car in front. That always felt a little much, but it definitely helped prevent wrecks.
In my state, it’s one car length(15-20 feet) for every 10mph. Good luck getting anyone to actually follow it though! Getting on a major highway here is like the Autobahn.
2 seconds assumes an instantaneous reaction and perfect road conditions. In the EU they’ll teach you about 3s and at least +1 in poor conditions.
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This is the only good answer. No need to distract yourself by figuring out your speed and guesstimating your gap like others are saying. Just count the seconds whenever you need to
2 isn’t much, over here they recommend 3 at highway speeds
nothing gets me more pissed off than when I’m driving the speed limit on an open road with an open passing zone, no one coming towards me or ahead of me, and some dipshit decides to ride my ass
Try putting on your right blinker, sometimes they get the message you’re encouraging them to pass.
If that doesn’t work, there’s always the Chechen wave
*Check local state laws for applicability
Its always a huge pickup truck too. I look in the mirror and just see the front grill
Or you’re in the right hand lane and people are still tailgating you even though you’re going 70mph.
Some people are unnecessarily aggressive on the road. Probably because they have unresolved emotional issues and take it out on other drivers. At least that’s what I tell myself.
Probably because they have unresolved emotional issues and take it out on other drivers.
Oh they absolutely do.
Besides guns, motor vehicles are probably the most physically powerful things most of us (in the US) have the freedom to control in our lives. And there are almost no restrictions on allowing someone to drive when they can’t or won’t regulate their emotional state.
Then you need to lift off the accellerator, don’t brake check or anything, just slowly slow down.
If the car behind you won’t give you enough safety margin to maintain a high speed, then your only option to maintain safety is to reduce your speed to that the safety margin they five you is enough to stop in time for an accident.
Here in Sweden we have plenty of roundabouts, I will use those to also get rid of annoying drivers who just can’t manage their distance, if I have someone like that behind me when I get to a roundabout, I just drive a full lap of the roundabout and let them pass.
I will allways let these guys past when I can, they are in a rush to their own accident, and I am not, let them pass and and make them stop being my problem, if I can’t find a place to let them pass I will reduce my speed to compensate for their lack of safety margins
Sometimes I increment my cruise control down a mph at a time to see how much I can get them to slow down
I just clean my windows.
The speed and distance will make it so all the cleaner fluid will spray on their windshield. Making it all nasty.
Feels like I am driving a spy car.
I already subconsciously do this because I know it pisses them off, but I like your justification much better
It isn’t even a justification, it is simple defensive driving, as I was taught in driving school, and reenforced by my dad many times.
I leave enough room for me to have time to react and give the person behind me enough time to react to my breaking. Because most people drive way too close to avoid a rear-end collision if I have to slam my breaks for an emergency. Sometimes that means I’m 4, 5 or 6 car lengths away from the car in front of me, but that has the added benefit of pissing off tailgators who will almost immediately choose to pass me which works out great for me. The less space the person behind gives, the more space I leave between me and the person in front.
Spoken like a true left lane hogger
If they’re matching the pace of the car ahead, explain the offense.
If you’re pacing the car in front of you, you’re already wrong.
Never. Pace. Strangers.
You pass them or let them pass.
Left lane is for passing. The vehicle ahead of them could very well be just as in the wrong if not worse.
They never said they’re in the left lane, and in fact specifically specified against it. Sounds like you’re both defensive and an aggressive driver.
The vast majority of roads that allow legal passing are 2 lanes. Safe assumption to make. They didn’t clarify otherwise until a later comment. This thread is also days old and a settled conversation you are now interjecting into… why?
It’s Lemmy, and it took maybe 5 minutes of scrolling for this to be on my front page. Your comment irked me and I want to increase engagement on the site, sue me.
Ive got something you can irk
That is weird and doesn’t make sense.
Nope, I stay in the slow lane, unless my exit is in the left lane of course.
Spoken like a true entitled bad driver
Two car lengths? You absolute madman! That’s positively grotesque!
For the purposes of this comment, I’m assuming that cars are about fifty feet long.
At 60mph with a 2 second following distance, you’d need about 176 feet, so you’d want 3 car lengths with 50 foot cars.
Limo driver moment
yeah me too. i get a lot of rollerskaters squeezing into the space so i keep backing off til theyre all jammed ass to mouth like a human centipede. gotta keep my distance for when the chain binds. and it will
Should be at least 5 car lengths on the highway
I salute you good sir! That’s plenty of space to squeeze past if necessary 😁 Just maintain a constant speed and you’re a hero
And stay out of the passing lane.
