Discussion
kaf said:
And the legislation for this..................?
Unsafe in many situations maybe, but illegal 'per se'- no, not unless in doing so you create a 'due care' situation.
Unsafe in many situations maybe, but illegal 'per se'- no, not unless in doing so you create a 'due care' situation.
Highway Code section 268 said:
Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake.
It would be very difficult to use the excuse that the traffic in the outside lane was travelling slower than you wanted to go and at the end of the day, pulling an undertake is potentially dangerous (although I'll admit to doing it when I come across a proper 3rd-lane dawdler, as I did last Monday coming out of Manchester - just below 50mph when the road was clear enough for 70+ - muppet)creampuff said:
Also by 1 second gap, I mean a 1 second gap, ie about 6 car lengths @ 70mph not right up their chuff.
The best case reaction time for a fit and healthy person is 0.7 seconds when they're expecting to react to something (1.25 seconds if it's 'unexpected'). A normal incandescent bulb takes about 0.25 seconds to 'react'. Therefore, if the car behind brakes it'll be between 1 and 1.5 seconds before your car starts slowing down. This has nothing to do with how good your brakes are (although I'm sure this is what gives people their false sense of security). Therefore a two second gap should be seen as an absolute minimum, to allow space to reduce braking input if the car behind is about to go into the back of you.Pages 75, 111, 152 of Roadcraft all advise a two second minimum following distance in the dry.
Nigel_O said:
Either way - 88 feet or 102 feet, the OP is going to end up running into the back of someone eventually, hence my request to know where he is and what he drives....
You are saying if I said grey Vectra, blue BMW or black Peugeot you would actually devote brain power and memory capacity, of the tens of thousands of cars on motorways in any given area to keep an eye out for me? Particularly as I mentioned a 1 second gap. You may not think this is sufficient, but it is in no way unusual either: if you look in any direction on a British motorway, you can find vehicles travelling with such a spacing. So disagree OK but say it is exceptional and otherwise unheard of, or even just uncommon, is just not true. Nigel_O said:
kaf said:
And the legislation for this..................?
Unsafe in many situations maybe, but illegal 'per se'- no, not unless in doing so you create a 'due care' situation.
Unsafe in many situations maybe, but illegal 'per se'- no, not unless in doing so you create a 'due care' situation.
Highway Code section 268 said:
Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake.
It would be very difficult to use the excuse that the traffic in the outside lane was travelling slower than you wanted to go and at the end of the day, pulling an undertake is potentially dangerous (although I'll admit to doing it when I come across a proper 3rd-lane dawdler, as I did last Monday coming out of Manchester - just below 50mph when the road was clear enough for 70+ - muppet)CPS has the following to say:-
There are decided cases that provide some guidance about the driving that the courts will regard as careless or inconsiderate and the following examples are typical of what we are likely to regard as careless or inconsiderate driving:
Careless driving
- overtaking on the inside;
- driving inappropriately close to another vehicle;
- ...
http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/pbd...
There are decided cases that provide some guidance about the driving that the courts will regard as careless or inconsiderate and the following examples are typical of what we are likely to regard as careless or inconsiderate driving:
Careless driving
- overtaking on the inside;
- driving inappropriately close to another vehicle;
- ...
http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/pbd...
creampuff said:
You are saying if I said grey Vectra, blue BMW or black Peugeot you would actually devote brain power and memory capacity, of the tens of thousands of cars on motorways in any given area to keep an eye out for me? Particularly as I mentioned a 1 second gap. You may not think this is sufficient, but it is in no way unusual either: if you look in any direction on a British motorway, you can find vehicles travelling with such a spacing. So disagree OK but say it is exceptional and otherwise unheard of, or even just uncommon, is just not true.
Just because the majority of people on the motorway are halfwits that believe sitting on each other's tail pipes at 80mph is a good idea, doesn't make it so.Witness the carnage when one of said halfwits crashes in the fog and everyone else around for two miles piles into the back of each other.
Whilst it is frustrating that there are many people who believe that it is perfectly acceptable to cruise in any lane other than lane 1 regardless of those behind, it is still no excuse for sitting on their arses or any over poor road behaviour.
creampuff said:
You are saying if I said grey Vectra, blue BMW or black Peugeot you would actually devote brain power and memory capacity, of the tens of thousands of cars on motorways in any given area to keep an eye out for me? Particularly as I mentioned a 1 second gap. You may not think this is sufficient, but it is in no way unusual either: if you look in any direction on a British motorway, you can find vehicles travelling with such a spacing. So disagree OK but say it is exceptional and otherwise unheard of, or even just uncommon, is just not true.
being a Lemming is not a defence....If you tailgate at 1 second just because everyone else is doing it, it simply means that the rear end of your car will be smashed up, as well as the front
Synchromesh said:
The best case reaction time for a fit and healthy person is 0.7 seconds when they're expecting to react to something (1.25 seconds if it's 'unexpected').
I don't believe those timings for a minute. You're saying the average reaction time is around 1s (if 0.7 is best and 1.25 worst). Where do they come from? Most web resources quote figures around the 0.2-0.3 range.I don't think I'm particularly special, but I've reacted in far less time on any number of occaisions, with animals darting out onto country roads etc.
Even my missus(!) is faster, by miles. By example, she avoided a m-way accident by straight-line braking, she was less than 2s from the car in front (yeah she tends to drive too close). There was a multiple pile up involving the 4 cars in front so everything stopped pretty quick, but we didn't go into it (just). She didn't take anything like 0.7s to react, we'd have been caught in it if she had.
The Black Flash said:
I don't believe those timings for a minute. You're saying the average reaction time is around 1s (if 0.7 is best and 1.25 worst). Where do they come from? Most web resources quote figures around the 0.2-0.3 range.
I don't think I'm particularly special, but I've reacted in far less time on any number of occaisions, with animals darting out onto country roads etc.
Even my missus(!) is faster, by miles. By example, she avoided a m-way accident by straight-line braking, she was less than 2s from the car in front (yeah she tends to drive too close). There was a multiple pile up involving the 4 cars in front so everything stopped pretty quick, but we didn't go into it (just). She didn't take anything like 0.7s to react, we'd have been caught in it if she had.
She probably *started* to react very quickly, but it would have taken around 0.7 seconds before her foot was actually on the brake pedal.I don't think I'm particularly special, but I've reacted in far less time on any number of occaisions, with animals darting out onto country roads etc.
Even my missus(!) is faster, by miles. By example, she avoided a m-way accident by straight-line braking, she was less than 2s from the car in front (yeah she tends to drive too close). There was a multiple pile up involving the 4 cars in front so everything stopped pretty quick, but we didn't go into it (just). She didn't take anything like 0.7s to react, we'd have been caught in it if she had.
However, this was because she was alert and her reaction time was probably at the low end of the scale - my point against the OP was that if he's following with a 1 second gap, he WILL hit the car in front, simply becuase the car in front will already be travelling considerably slower than him by the time he hits the brakes, becuase the car in front hit the brakes at least 0.7 seconds earlier and thus (even after BOTH cars have hit the brakes) there will still be a closing speed.
I also made the point that if he wasn't absolutely on the ball, the 1 second gap will be gone before his foot is on the brake pedal
Either way, if the car in front brakes hard and you're following at a 1 second gap, you're nearly always going to hit it. The only escape is if (as some advanced drivers do) you've spotted the brake lights coming on several cars ahead and you're on the brakes before the car in front. However, the OP admits to tailgating simply because other drivers do, so there's a very high chance that whilst he may not ram the car in front, he's going to be hit from behind by the other driver in the Lemming-train
pingu393 said:
Creampuff, how fast are your reactions? Try the ruler test. Vertical ruler dropped between your fingers. How many cms does it drop before you catch it?
0.3s to mentally acknowledge car in front is slowing
0.5s to move foot to brake
not time much left to judge appropiate braking pressure
probably assume emergency stop required
possibly lock wheels
over brake and increase distance to 3s
accelerate to close gap back to 1s
fail to observe the wave effect on the following traffic
Any of this familiar?
if you are close to someone in front 'on a racetrack' hover left foot over brake0.3s to mentally acknowledge car in front is slowing
0.5s to move foot to brake
not time much left to judge appropiate braking pressure
probably assume emergency stop required
possibly lock wheels
over brake and increase distance to 3s
accelerate to close gap back to 1s
fail to observe the wave effect on the following traffic
Any of this familiar?
The Black Flash said:
I don't believe those timings for a minute. You're saying the average reaction time is around 1s (if 0.7 is best and 1.25 worst). Where do they come from? Most web resources quote figures around the 0.2-0.3 range.
I don't think I'm particularly special, but I've reacted in far less time on any number of occaisions, with animals darting out onto country roads etc.
Even my missus(!) is faster, by miles. By example, she avoided a m-way accident by straight-line braking, she was less than 2s from the car in front (yeah she tends to drive too close). There was a multiple pile up involving the 4 cars in front so everything stopped pretty quick, but we didn't go into it (just). She didn't take anything like 0.7s to react, we'd have been caught in it if she had.
The figures come from repeated 'trap tests' done in the land of the free... when development of high level brake lights was being done, they'd use a pair of cars which sandwich a victim and then brake test them to see the reaction time. From there came a reaction time for the general public of between 0.75s and 1.5s. That figure has been used as the standard in accident investigation circles for a couple of decades at least.I don't think I'm particularly special, but I've reacted in far less time on any number of occaisions, with animals darting out onto country roads etc.
Even my missus(!) is faster, by miles. By example, she avoided a m-way accident by straight-line braking, she was less than 2s from the car in front (yeah she tends to drive too close). There was a multiple pile up involving the 4 cars in front so everything stopped pretty quick, but we didn't go into it (just). She didn't take anything like 0.7s to react, we'd have been caught in it if she had.
There's a fundamental difference between and expected reaction time and an unexpected reaction time.
On rare occasions, vehicles can stop dead. It happened to me when the whole engine (!) fell out of my car 
whilst I was driving in the outside lane of the M25. My car stopped dead.
It turned out that the bolts holding the engine in place had simultaneously sheared. It was obviously a freak accident. But then emergency stops are for emergencies, such as a freak occurrence.
whilst I was driving in the outside lane of the M25. My car stopped dead.It turned out that the bolts holding the engine in place had simultaneously sheared. It was obviously a freak accident. But then emergency stops are for emergencies, such as a freak occurrence.
creampuff said:
As far as safety, for me to hit them, they would have to come to a dead stop almost instantaneously, which barring a meteorite suddenly creating a hole in the motorway in front of them, can't happen ...
It's worth noting that if you are utterly focused on the vehicle in front and the immediate vicinity, hovering over the brake pedal, then you almost certainly aren't spending the time to lift your vision and do the general observation you need to drive well.
If you're so close that you can't take your eyes off the car in front, then you can't look around.
If you're so close that you can't take your eyes off the car in front, then you can't look around.
StressedDave said:
There's a fundamental difference between and expected reaction time and an unexpected reaction time.
I don't doubt it. I also know that I can (and have) react and brake in well under three-quaters of a second, and have done multiple times. No way is that a "best case". That's not to suggest that you should drive up someone's chuff, mind.
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