Two second rule?

[768]

7mike said:

I occasionally contemplate the reasons why a driver would tailgate. It can't be a lack of intelligence seeing as even people in higher value cars (and presumably at least some of them have a high enough degree of intelligence to work in jobs that pay enough to afford the car).

What is the motivation for tailgating? Do those that partake think it will encourage the driver ahead to drive at a speed more to their own liking( even though they'll still tailgate, just faster) ? Is it a means of expressing some sort of perceived superiority?

As this is the advanced section, we all have a degree of knowledge regarding overtaking techniques, none of which involves compromising forward vision during the planning stage. Naturally, if there's no opportunity to overtake, we hang back and make do with the pace of the vehicle(s) ahead.

I've heard it mentioned that tailgaters don't know they are doing anything wrong. That's rubbish! I've trained and assessed thousands of drivers over the last eighteen years and not once have I sat next to a tailgater (a bit closer than ideal, but no tailgaters) so I've either been incredibly luck, or those that do it know fine well it's wrong.

So back to my question; what motivates tailgaters? Any theories? There's a lot of them out there, anyone care to come clean?

In the UK, likely they simply have a different view on what's sufficient margin. Possibly informed through experience particularly in other countries where much smaller margins can be common.

Two seconds, or even three or three and a half, is usually a lot in my view. A lot of margin isn't a bad thing, but I'm often ok with a bit less.

I'm loathed to say this, but I will, because it's true... I also find that on a motorway if you ease your approach in slowly and leave a large gap people are less inclined to move over at all than if you approach more quickly to a smaller gap.

I don't see much of what I think of as true tailgating in the UK though. Plenty of people closer than 2 seconds, but not really sitting bumper to bumper unless someone's really taking the mick with lane hogging.

[Actual]

768 said:

I'm loathed to say this, but I will, because it's true... I also find that on a motorway if you ease your approach in slowly and leave a large gap people are less inclined to move over at all than if you approach more quickly to a smaller gap.

I often travel long distance on the A34 which is dual. I set the adaptive cruise to just over the speed limit and because I leave a good and constant unchanging gap to the car in front it often wont move over even when travelling under the speed limit. This situation can really frustrate traffic behind but if the car ahead would follow the rules and move over then I would speed up, pass and move over.

[modellista]

Actual said:

I often travel long distance on the A34 which is dual. I set the adaptive cruise to just over the speed limit and because I leave a good and constant unchanging gap to the car in front it often wont move over even when travelling under the speed limit. This situation can really frustrate traffic behind but if the car ahead would follow the rules and move over then I would speed up, pass and move over.

I'm sure we're all too familiar with the lane-2-hogger situation. I find just sitting behind them when it becomes clear that they are not going to pull over an unsatisfactory state of affairs. You're going more slowly than you want, but with the risk of following a car for miles for no real benefit.. It depends what mood you're in - the safest thing to do is just pull left and wait for something else to happen - you're not going as fast as you'd like but at least you're not sat behind another car indefinitely. They might take your lead and eventually pull left in which case you're free to overtake them.

The other choice is to flash them to get them to move over. Not sure what the advanced driving hive mind thinks of that tactic but I have done it from time to time with a silly intransigent lane hogger. Or maybe pull left and wait for someone else to rock up and do the flashing - maybe the best of both worlds?

[Somewhatfoolish]

modellista said:

Actual said:

I often travel long distance on the A34 which is dual. I set the adaptive cruise to just over the speed limit and because I leave a good and constant unchanging gap to the car in front it often wont move over even when travelling under the speed limit. This situation can really frustrate traffic behind but if the car ahead would follow the rules and move over then I would speed up, pass and move over.

I'm sure we're all too familiar with the lane-2-hogger situation. I find just sitting behind them when it becomes clear that they are not going to pull over an unsatisfactory state of affairs. You're going more slowly than you want, but with the risk of following a car for miles for no real benefit.. It depends what mood you're in - the safest thing to do is just pull left and wait for something else to happen - you're not going as fast as you'd like but at least you're not sat behind another car indefinitely. They might take your lead and eventually pull left in which case you're free to overtake them.

The other choice is to flash them to get them to move over. Not sure what the advanced driving hive mind thinks of that tactic but I have done it from time to time with a silly intransigent lane hogger. Or maybe pull left and wait for someone else to rock up and do the flashing - maybe the best of both worlds?

Flashing absolutely fine, the trick is to not be a dhead (tailgating and furiously toggling lights on/off) like most "flashers" seem to.

One nice three-five second flash tends to work.

If driving at speed you can often do this a few hundred yards away without even having to let off the gas, and it's more effective too. Actually in some ways very good as you can have a higher speed differential than when passing some random Peugeout in lane 1.

[Pica-Pica]

Somewhatfoolish said:

modellista said:

Actual said:

I often travel long distance on the A34 which is dual. I set the adaptive cruise to just over the speed limit and because I leave a good and constant unchanging gap to the car in front it often wont move over even when travelling under the speed limit. This situation can really frustrate traffic behind but if the car ahead would follow the rules and move over then I would speed up, pass and move over.

I'm sure we're all too familiar with the lane-2-hogger situation. I find just sitting behind them when it becomes clear that they are not going to pull over an unsatisfactory state of affairs. You're going more slowly than you want, but with the risk of following a car for miles for no real benefit.. It depends what mood you're in - the safest thing to do is just pull left and wait for something else to happen - you're not going as fast as you'd like but at least you're not sat behind another car indefinitely. They might take your lead and eventually pull left in which case you're free to overtake them.

The other choice is to flash them to get them to move over. Not sure what the advanced driving hive mind thinks of that tactic but I have done it from time to time with a silly intransigent lane hogger. Or maybe pull left and wait for someone else to rock up and do the flashing - maybe the best of both worlds?

Flashing absolutely fine, the trick is to not be a dhead (tailgating and furiously toggling lights on/off) like most "flashers" seem to.

One nice three-five second flash tends to work.

If driving at speed you can often do this a few hundred yards away without even having to let off the gas, and it's more effective too. Actually in some ways very good as you can have a higher speed differential than when passing some random Peugeout in lane 1.

I approach fairly fast, and use the RH indicator. Occasionally I flash, but that seems to startle some as they seem unaware anyone is behind.

[silverfoxcc]

My son had this problem,and tried to back it up demos of tbe stopping distance in full oh st mode and zaying the HC back cover needs updating..and nothing ever stops dead in front of you.i tried to explain it is there a a safety guide..but nothing would get through...until i saw on You tubde a video from a car in L3 with a less tban ealthh gap.lloked km until tbe car in front swerved violently to the left leaving the cam car about 50ft or so before hitting a car stopped in L3.i think the brakes were being applied as they hit
i wish i had msde az note of it...peopld are not taught to drive, but to pass the test. they do not look past the end of tbe bonnet to read ghe road.

[Fast and Spurious]

silverfoxcc said:

My son had this problem,and tried to back it up demos of tbe stopping distance in full oh st mode and zaying the HC back cover needs updating..and nothing ever stops dead in front of you.i tried to explain it is there a a safety guide..but nothing would get through...until i saw on You tubde a video from a car in L3 with a less tban ealthh gap.lloked km until tbe car in front swerved violently to the left leaving the cam car about 50ft or so before hitting a car stopped in L3.i think the brakes were being applied as they hit
i wish i had msde az note of it...peopld are not taught to drive, but to pass the test. they do not look past the end of tbe bonnet to read ghe road.

Here is that in Klingon in case that helps:

ghu' qaStaHvIS wa' ram, 'ej ghu' vIbejDI', ghu' qaStaHvIS wa'maH 'ej tlhoS ghu'vetlh. 'ej qeylIS wIpo'chugh, vaj pe'vIl qengtaHvIS qa'lIj. loDnI'Daj Hutlhchugh, 'ach vIHoHbe'. yapbe'bogh neH 'ej pa'Daq Hoch HutlhlIj tlhaplaHbe' ghewmey. yapbe'mo' loDnI'wI' 'ej pIvwIj yap law', yabwIjDaq yap law', tlhoS yIntagh yapbe'wI' vISovbej.
muQaHbe'chugh 'oH. narghmoHmeH ghojmoHwI' neH. ghomDI' cha' vaj Ha'DIbaH cheghchu'wI' cha'DIch.

[Salted_Peanut]

silverfoxcc said:

nothing ever stops dead in front of you.

Vehicles can stop dead. Incredibly, I once had my engine fall out! The car stopped dead. And I was in the outside lane of the motorway.

[Ron240]

Fast and Spurious said:

silverfoxcc said:

My son had this problem,and tried to back it up demos of tbe stopping distance in full oh st mode and zaying the HC back cover needs updating..and nothing ever stops dead in front of you.i tried to explain it is there a a safety guide..but nothing would get through...until i saw on You tubde a video from a car in L3 with a less tban ealthh gap.lloked km until tbe car in front swerved violently to the left leaving the cam car about 50ft or so before hitting a car stopped in L3.i think the brakes were being applied as they hit
i wish i had msde az note of it...peopld are not taught to drive, but to pass the test. they do not look past the end of tbe bonnet to read ghe road.

Here is that in Klingon in case that helps:

ghu' qaStaHvIS wa' ram, 'ej ghu' vIbejDI', ghu' qaStaHvIS wa'maH 'ej tlhoS ghu'vetlh. 'ej qeylIS wIpo'chugh, vaj pe'vIl qengtaHvIS qa'lIj. loDnI'Daj Hutlhchugh, 'ach vIHoHbe'. yapbe'bogh neH 'ej pa'Daq Hoch HutlhlIj tlhaplaHbe' ghewmey. yapbe'mo' loDnI'wI' 'ej pIvwIj yap law', yabwIjDaq yap law', tlhoS yIntagh yapbe'wI' vISovbej.
muQaHbe'chugh 'oH. narghmoHmeH ghojmoHwI' neH. ghomDI' cha' vaj Ha'DIbaH cheghchu'wI' cha'DIch.

Brilliant.
I am not sure what impresses me more here...the fact that you were clearly thinking the same as me after reading the post in question, or that a Klingon translator exists.

[Majorslow]

7mike said:

I occasionally contemplate the reasons why a driver would tailgate. It can't be a lack of intelligence seeing as even people in higher value cars (and presumably at least some of them have a high enough degree of intelligence to work in jobs that pay enough to afford the car).

What is the motivation for tailgating? Do those that partake think it will encourage the driver ahead to drive at a speed more to their own liking( even though they'll still tailgate, just faster) ? Is it a means of expressing some sort of perceived superiority?

As this is the advanced section, we all have a degree of knowledge regarding overtaking techniques, none of which involves compromising forward vision during the planning stage. Naturally, if there's no opportunity to overtake, we hang back and make do with the pace of the vehicle(s) ahead.

I've heard it mentioned that tailgaters don't know they are doing anything wrong. That's rubbish! I've trained and assessed thousands of drivers over the last eighteen years and not once have I sat next to a tailgater (a bit closer than ideal, but no tailgaters) so I've either been incredibly luck, or those that do it know fine well it's wrong.

So back to my question; what motivates tailgaters? Any theories? There's a lot of them out there, anyone care to come clean?

Hello Mike 7,

Like you I am in the driver training and assessing industry. I have carried out hundreds of driving assessments for candidates for becoming taxi drivers. When travelling along the M27 in particular, or in Southampton on a road called "Thomas Lewis Way" which is a wide single carriageway road I find that very many drivers "tailgate".

They do "fail", and on debriefing them as to why they failed many give me the answer that they think the safe gap is "2 car lengths" not "2 seconds". Just about all of them have not heard of the "4 second" rule either.

They don't even understand that the increase of speed of the vehicle in front means that the gap must widen, but are as happy to drive at 70 at 2 car lengths as they would at 20 mph.

I then give them (if they are willing to listen) an explanation of how to work out a 2 and 4 second gap (min 10 in the snow/ice)

"Only a fool breaks the two second rule (dry) and add to the sentence "And only a prat brakes like that !" for the 4 second rule"

Getting back to the OP's observations, we that try do the right thing must stay patient and calm, keeping left when we can, let them get by when we can let them safely, and watch them bug the guy in front.... from a distance

Further to "tailgating" does any one else notice that folk that tailgate are often the ones that stop inches from your rear at traffic lights and queuing traffic? And when you inch forward to try and create that gap they just close up on you again?

[Smint]

768 said:

I don't see much of what I think of as true tailgating in the UK though. Plenty of people closer than 2 seconds, but not really sitting bumper to bumper unless someone's really taking the mick with lane hogging.

Try Northamptonshire's wholly unfit road network at peak times, the worse offenders by far are works vans, they try and bully others by sitting inches behind and force their way in front whenever possible, doesn't bother me personally because my car commutes are early hours and usually early afternoons, i see most of the morning antics from the heights of a truck cab, if they want to tailgate an artic and risk tanker pipework straight in the kisser if they hit one up the arse well good luck with that.

Northants is a completely different county to even 20 years ago, its become the distribution hub of the country where hundreds and hundreds of warehouses and RDCs have gone up on prime arable land as well as whole swathes of the country concreted over to house thousands more people to work in the hell holes, unfortunately we're still on the same road network that couldn't handle the traffic volumes of 50 years ago, coupled with the massive increase in truck traffic destroying said roads faster than they can patch them up, resulting in whole road networks being shut overnight year after year for repeated bodging...course you know what the politicians answer will be, electric trucks which will need to have a gross weight of 50 tons to carry the same goods as the present 44, conveniently forgetting that a typical electric artic combo will tare off at around 20 tons (and we'll need double the number of them because of charging times) and new EU standards (in reality we're still in) means new trailers can't even have any lift axles, if its got 3 they have to all be on the ground even when empty, as the supermarket jingle goes every little helps.

[simon_harris]

Ron240 said:

simon_harris said:

I do believe that ROSPA suggests a 3 second gap in the dry, 4 or 5 in the wet.

I am fully aware of the common 2 second rule, but when on motorway sections with chevrons painted on the road and they tell you to keep 2 chevrons apart it always seems like just a little bit too long of a distance..
Now regarding leaving 5 seconds gap in the wet and assuming a speed of 60 mph you will travel 438 feet, which taking an average car lenth of 14.5 feet this will be 30 car lengths.
Im sure you will agree this is simply not feasible.

It's not my rule, it is the recommendation by ROSPA

https://twitter.com/roadsafety/status/141087463418...

However in the wet I do adhere to a minimum of a 3 second gap. Don't forget the faster you are going the more space you leave to the car in front the more chance you have of avoiding hitting them in an accident.

[Ron240]

simon_harris said:

Ron240 said:

simon_harris said:

I do believe that ROSPA suggests a 3 second gap in the dry, 4 or 5 in the wet.

I am fully aware of the common 2 second rule, but when on motorway sections with chevrons painted on the road and they tell you to keep 2 chevrons apart it always seems like just a little bit too long of a distance..
Now regarding leaving 5 seconds gap in the wet and assuming a speed of 60 mph you will travel 438 feet, which taking an average car lenth of 14.5 feet this will be 30 car lengths.
Im sure you will agree this is simply not feasible.

It's not my rule, it is the recommendation by ROSPA

https://twitter.com/roadsafety/status/141087463418...

However in the wet I do adhere to a minimum of a 3 second gap. Don't forget the faster you are going the more space you leave to the car in front the more chance you have of avoiding hitting them in an accident.

I stand by what I said about leaving a 5 second gap being impractical.
Well yes obviously it depends on speed, this is why I specified 60 mph as my example for a wet motorway.
The distance gap is not the single critical factor, but also the alertness of the driver.
All of this is common sense though.

[BertBert]

Salted_Peanut said:

Vehicles can stop dead. Incredibly, I once had my engine fall out! The car stopped dead. And I was in the outside lane of the motorway.

No it didn't. An instantaneous stop would have generated an infinite g-force and you'd be dead.

[v9]

BertBert said:

No it didn't. An instantaneous stop would have generated an infinite g-force and you'd be dead.

To be super pedantic, even if the car stops instantly the person driving it wouldn’t, so the G < infinity. Would still hurt though!

[v9]

BertBert said:

No it didn't. An instantaneous stop would have generated an infinite g-force and you'd be dead.

To be super pedantic, even if the car stops instantly the person driving it wouldn’t, so the G < infinity. Would still hurt though!

[Pica-Pica]

v9 said:

BertBert said:

No it didn't. An instantaneous stop would have generated an infinite g-force and you'd be dead.

To be super pedantic, even if the car stops instantly the person driving it wouldn’t, so the G < infinity. Would still hurt though!

Nothing stops instantly, there would even be some compression in the ‘solid’ object you hit, and of course the ‘crumple zones’ are there to give some deceleration. A traumatic aortic rupture may well occur to any occupants. Seat belts can go some way to controlling the torso deceleration, but can’t perform miracles.

[Ron240]

BertBert said:

Salted_Peanut said:

Vehicles can stop dead. Incredibly, I once had my engine fall out! The car stopped dead. And I was in the outside lane of the motorway.

No it didn't. An instantaneous stop would have generated an infinite g-force and you'd be dead.

Correct, and as already said it is simply not possible for a vehicle to 'stop dead'.
When Max Verstappen was playing silly games at Silverstone GP 2021 his 160mph crash generated 51g, but he did not 'stop dead'
Similarly an Indycar driver experienced 214g back in 2003 during a 220mph crash, but again did not 'stop dead'
During a dead stop ones internal organs would keep moving at the previous speed.
Probably the best way to understand it would be the effect on the human body of falling from a height onto solid concrete

[7mike]

Majorslow said:

They do "fail", and on debriefing them as to why they failed many give me the answer that they think the safe gap is "2 car lengths" not "2 seconds". Just about all of them have not heard of the "4 second" rule either.

They don't even understand that the increase of speed of the vehicle in front means that the gap must widen, but are as happy to drive at 70 at 2 car lengths as they would at 20 mph.

I then give them (if they are willing to listen) an explanation

Hi Majorslow, sorry just seen your reply. I've done a bit of taxi testing in East Lancashire/ West Yorkshire but avoid it like the plague these days .

I think my PB was giving 15 minors (gave up marking the sheet after that), two serious and a dangerous! He still complained it was a fix when I gave him the result.

Regarding gaps like that though, mate, I'd intervene straight away; no way the job pays enough to put your own life on the line!

[Majorslow]

7mike said:

Majorslow said:

They do "fail", and on debriefing them as to why they failed many give me the answer that they think the safe gap is "2 car lengths" not "2 seconds". Just about all of them have not heard of the "4 second" rule either.

They don't even understand that the increase of speed of the vehicle in front means that the gap must widen, but are as happy to drive at 70 at 2 car lengths as they would at 20 mph.

I then give them (if they are willing to listen) an explanation

Hi Majorslow, sorry just seen your reply. I've done a bit of taxi testing in East Lancashire/ West Yorkshire but avoid it like the plague these days .

I think my PB was giving 15 minors (gave up marking the sheet after that), two serious and a dangerous! He still complained it was a fix when I gave him the result.

I often get in the 20's for faults be it minor or major faults, I love it when I run out of ink!!

Had a bloke today who is making a complaint that I failed him for doing 37 in a 30, and he didn't believe me the road was a 30 (and has been for about 3+ years) still he will provide me with more work next year. Who needs fairground rides when you can be an ADI!!!
Regarding gaps like that though, mate, I'd intervene straight away; no way the job pays enough to put your own life on the line!