Beep beep

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.

I was taught to look when the car in front drives past a landmark like a lamppost, then say to myself "Only a fool breaks the two second rule"

If you pass the lamppost before you finish saying it, you're too close

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.

2 isn't much, over here they recommend 3 at highway speeds

Help me out with this, because it's driving me crazy. Whenever I leave anywhere close to 2 seconds between me and the car on front of me, someone cuts in, and I'm now too close to them, so I slow down, leaving a 2 second gap, and another cuts in. Rinse, repeat. I end up being the slow ass that everyone keeps zooming around unless I tailgate.

At 65mph, you cover two car lengths (~30 ft) in about 1/3 of a second.

Typically human reaction time for braking is about 1.5 seconds.

If something went seriously wrong in front of you (like a sideways car, or a hidden obstacle in front of the car in front of you) you would have covered 10 car lengths before your foot touches the brake pedal.

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 so that the safety margin they give 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

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.

Its always a huge pickup truck too. I look in the mirror and just see the front grill

Try putting on your right blinker, sometimes they get the message you're encouraging them to pass.

I'd be fuckin raging if someone was driving two car lengths behind me. That's fucking idiotic

Visit Tennessee and get back to me. Moving from Tennessee to Michigan I noticed a distinct uptick in the quality of driving.

I was driving in slowish freeway traffic in Detroit and the guy behind me plowed right into me, didn't even slow down, didn't even look away. He sort of bounced off of me, pulled onto the shoulder, and squeeled off while I had to find some sketchy spot to stop and make sure my bumper wasn't dragging too much.

A person I was visiting there in Detroit told me that insurance wasn't required so many people run off rather than risk getting blamed and the cops wouldn't even bother with a report.

Brake check!

I tend to annoy people by dropping off the gas much sooner for lights than strictly necessary, but by gently slowing I both save gas, wear and depending on the timing of the light I can often even time it to miss the red entirely

Intelligent people leave a whole fucking lot more than just two car lengths.

Two car lengths isn't even remotely enough space if you're traveling at high speeds.

Especially annoying if you're driving a manual and are stopped on an incline.

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.

Maybe they just really love the smell of exhaust and are trying to get high off of your emissions

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.

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.

Id get that close if I want to give the phone enjoyer behind me plenty of time to stop

And I know it's state dependent, but the highways by me, each white line is about one car and each gap is one car, so if you're doing 50, having two to three white dashed lines between you and the car in front of you is probably good.

What is this in imperial? How many bullets per square-child?

This is just plain untrue.

In all cases you need to drive to the conditions. Observe your circumstances and adapt your behavior accordingly.

3s is a good yard stick, but there's plenty of situations in which it is not the ideal safe distance.

At 110km/h that's about 90 metres. Every idiot around is going to try to move around you to take up that spot. Being overtaken by idiots is unsafe. This is just one example, there's plenty of others.

Infinite free beer exploit?

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.

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.

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

"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've always preferred the 2 second rule. You don't need to do distance math in your head, just find a tree and count the time it takes to get from their car to yours.

In the US, usually it's one car length per 10mph.

Probably not much more intuitive than yours, but less math required on the fly.

In France the way we learned is (for the highway at least)

• 110km/h: 5 small markings between you and the other car
• 130km/h: 2 large markings

I just leave enough room to come to a stop in the gap between us.

Do European cars come with distance measuring equipment??

I always (sometimes) do three seconds between me and the car in front of me. That automatically adjusts for increased speed.

How am I supposed to leave 10 car lengths while speeding through a school zone? Explain!

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.

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

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 half when stopped. I like having ample room to GTFO if I need to.

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.

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

Should be about one car length for every 10mph. On a highway unless you're going slow that would be too close.

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.

And stay out of the passing lane.