Tailgaiting An offence ?

[RUSSELLM]

Following on from the "undertaking on motorway thread"

If there's any police officers reading, I'd be interested to know, when is a vehicle deemed to be "tailgaiting" ?

Is it an offence ?

What is the charge ?

[gone]

When it is too close to the vehicle in front relative to the speed they are travelling so that they cannot stop in the time it takes them to think, react and apply the procedure without the ptotential of hitting the vehicle in front.

The charge is driving without due care/reasonable consideration (Section 3 RTA 1988) or in the worst cases, Dangerous driving (Section 2 RTA 1988).

[RUSSELLM]

Thanks gone..

Who decides this distance is correct ?

Is it that the mind of the tailgaiter is correct ?

Is it that the mind of an individual officer is correct ?

Or is there a specific distance to speed equation ?

[_dobbo_]

Can't be the two second rule otherwise every car on the entire motorway network would need to be done for driving without due care...

[volvos70t5]

Determining an appropriate following distance is not an exact science. I think it depends on the circumstances.

A car that is simply following another one in lane 3 on a motorway at less than 1 second is, IMHO, tailgating.

Roadcraft speaks of the following position and the overtaking position. To the ignorant, the overtaking position could be construed as tailgating.

In that respect it boils down to what can we reasonably expect to occur ahead of us.

[Flat in Fifth]

volvos70t5 said:

Determining an appropriate following distance is not an exact science. I think it depends on the circumstances. A car that is simply following another one in lane 3 on a motorway at less than 1 second is, IMHO, tailgating. Roadcraft speaks of the following position and the overtaking position. To the ignorant, the overtaking position could be construed as tailgating. In that respect it boils down to what can we reasonably expect to occur ahead of us.

Agree with all that. Also what must be considered is not the instant in time that A is close to B but how that position was arrived at.

If A is adopting an overtaking position (say 1 second gap) in the full knowledge that there is nothing ahead which may cause B to slow down, yet as soon as a situation develops which clearly prevents the overtake and thus A drops back to the following (2 sec) position nothing wrong with that in my view.

Equally if A is at following position to B, and the space is filled by C changing lane no / late indication and A takes steps to re-establish a safe gap, nothing wrong with that either.

In principle there is an instant where both cases a tailgating camera would go ah-hah, flash kerchinnng!

Equally in the second case were A deliberately closing the gap to block C and/or intimidate B to move over or speed up then in that case the full weight of lily law should be rought to bear.

This is a complicated subject with so many variables not enough space to deal with it all.

All in my ever so humble opinion as always.

FiF

[sadako]

While I aim for at least 2 seconds, preferably more, in the real world I have to strike a bargain between a large enough gap to survive the crash and a large enough gap for a transit van to pull into 2 inches from my front bumper...