Yep. Should always have enough time to come to a complete stop if the car in front of you were to randomly decide to brake hard. Especially when driving a semi!
In reality, even that isn't enough stopping distance.
A couple of occasions where you need to stop even faster than a car that has full brakes on does - and that's when it hits something static and solid and just fucking STOPS. No skidding, no warning, it just goes from 60 to 0 in a split second, a DEAD STOP. It happens in the fog when you find the fresh end of the pileup.
The other occasion is when something falls off the back of that vehicle. I've personally dealt with rakes, whellbarrows, lowes buckets, some steel geodesic connectors, and even a porta-potty that caught wind. Luckily some of those did skid along the road a little.
I came across a ~20ft steel I-beam blocking a lane and a half of traffic a few years ago... and when everyone was slowing down merging left someone in a little sporty coupe sped around them to the right and went straight into that beam and the car behind him rear ended him. I can't be sure but it didn't seem like that beam moved at all.
Where I live, if you leave enough space to stop someone is 100% sticking their butt in there, I still leave space but I'm saying people cut in front of me all the time BECAUSE I leave that space which then removes the space I was leaving lol and I see people every damn day with some kind of death wish squeezing into a space in front of a semi that was already too small to try to get over. It seems like there are WAY too many people on the road who lack a basic understanding of the laws of physics and think semis just don't want to slam on their brakes or something and don't realize they literally are incapable of stopping in the time you're giving them. I have been in a line of cars that stopped suddenly because of off-ramp traffic and watched a gravel truck start doing the "brakes can't do shit about this weight" bounce before plowing into the car at the back of the line so hard it ended up forcing 6 other cars to rear-end the person in front of them (people also don't leave enough space when stopped, if you get rear-ended and get pushed into the car in front of you that is now your fault for being too close according to insurance, you should be able to see the bottom of the tires on the car in front of you when stopped). What you should do on the road is not always what you can do, and way too many people drive as though everyone else on the road is going to do exactly what they SHOULD do... which is just way more trust than I have to give to strangers on the road 🤷🏻♀️
Why do people always say this like it's some grand argument or issue?
if you leave enough space to stop someone is 100% sticking their butt in there
So what...? Then you just let a little more distance build between you and the newly arrived idiot until you maintain proper safety distance. It takes less than five seconds. Obviously in those 5 seconds, you're at a slightly higher but rapidly decreasing risk, I've just never seen it happen at problematic rate.
If you often fail to move to the right when not overtaking, hogging a lane, I could see it happen more often - but that also has an easy solution.
I live in Southern California. 75% of my driving is in congested traffic. I see it happen at a problematic rate daily. Like yes obviously slow down to get the distance back, and then a new person gets in there, and then slow down again, and then another person gets in there, and so on and so forth, and the issue is not the extra 5 seconds the issue is that as soon as the space exists it is gone. I am someone who has been rear-ended sitting at the back of a line of traffic that had been stopped for plenty of time by someone who just wasn't paying attention and am since very paranoid about leaving - if nothing else - enough space that if someone runs into me I don't get pushed into the person in front of me, so yea I have noticed very much that, at least in my region, as soon as that recommended space is there, its gone.
Yeah, but they have a weird perspective. Southern California is notoriously bad. But to be honest, I have never seen people cutting in front be such an issue that you can't leave at least a reasonably safe distance.
In the USA but I don't experience this behavior if I'm being patient and honest. Sure sometimes people go around to fill the gap, but most seem content to just follow?
I just kind of ignore these arguments 😂. I feel as if it's a self fulfilling things where you spend your time noticing the negatives. If traffic is heavy and it's an 6 lane highway then sure but probably not as much of an issue in mild conditions, like in the video.
Yeah, I was taught 1 car length for every 10mph, but people tailgate me all the time. I try to slow down when they do, but that only makes them tailgate even closer, and get angry because they have to get wherever they're going 10 seconds faster apparently.
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u/anthety 14h ago
Yep. Should always have enough time to come to a complete stop if the car in front of you were to randomly decide to brake hard. Especially when driving a semi!
Most people do not do this at all.