I got one of those dongles from my insurance company that plugged into the ODB2 port and reported my driving habits.
I was a bad driver. It would frequently beep at me to let me know that I had braked too hard. I was mystified. "What should I have done differently," I'd think, as I raged at the objective machine that judged me so.
The next time my brother came to visit, he called mom. "Oh, and presidentender is a good driver now." I didn't put the pieces together right away, but it turned out that the dongle had actually trained me, like a dog's shock collar.
The reason for my too-frequent hard-braking events wasn't speed, although that would be a contributing factor. It was a lack of appropriate following distance. Because I'd follow the drivers in front of me too closely I'd have to brake hard if they did... Or if they drive normally and happened to have a turn coming up.
Over the period I had the insurance spy box in my truck I learned without thinking about it to increase my following distance, which meant that riding with me as a passenger was more comfortable and it beeped less often. Of course since I'd been so naughty early during the evaluation they didn't decrease my rates, but I think the training probably did make me statistically less likely to crash.
Maintaining a safe following distance is incredibly challenging on busy freeways where hard braking is often 'required'. Most people have likely found themselves in this situation: vehicle changes lanes in front of you; you slow down to maintain a safe following distance, another car sees a gap and changes lanes in front of you. Repeat for your entire commute.
Incredibly frustrating, and I've driven all over North America - there's practically no major city where this doesn't happen. If you're not maintaining a safe following distance on city/residential streets, that's a different matter.
If you think highway driving requires hard braking, you're a bad driver.
Yes. If people are constantly moving into your appropriate head way this is doubtless annoying but the correct response is allow yourself to decelerate slowly to re-open that space again, repeat as many times as necessary, even if it means a bunch of agros end up in front of you. Better for them to be in front where you can see them, than behind or to the side, were you can't.
Yah. There's something that feels unjust about it -- the perception that the people cutting are getting something over on you -- that causes us to want to behave badly.
But even if 2 dozen people go around you and creep into that following space, you've been cost like 45 seconds at worst. Better not to play the game.
I just had to hard brake a few days ago. A driver a couple lanes over on 101 slammed on their breaks, rotated 90 degrees, and came to rest across a couple lanes (one of which was mine). Fortunately, I was alert, driving the speed limit, and in the right-most lane, with nobody following me close. The whole thing happened in less than 5 seconds.
It doesn't normally require hard braking, but when automated emergency braking decides to slam on the brakes at random for no reason in my own car, everybody behind me will share my resulting insurance rate increase.
It's almost as if the purpose of the system is what it does.
Or stuck on a highway with bad drivers. My local paper's current "bleeds => leads" story is about a head-on highway crash, between a big pickup truck and a wrong-way driver. Less that 4 hours after being posted, that story has already slipped off the front page.
"local drunk dies by misadventure" is a really, really boring news article.
I'm not sure the article, the article being off the front page now, or driving with bad drivers has anything to do with it.
The article stuff definitely doesn't.
Driving with bad drivers should incentivize you to follow less closely and require less hard braking, not more.
There's a motte where some poor fellow is always maintaining the car-length-for-every-10-mph rule and yet keeps being passed inside that distance by innumerable bad drivers the fellow is surrounded by.
I pity that fellow.
He has an excuse.
He also isn't observably real in any of my 21 years of driving in Buffalo, Boston, and Los Angeles.
I feel harsh for saying this, I am only saying it because A) this subthread is specifically about there isn't an excuse B) this stuff involves our lives. Thus, this is an appropriate venue because the people in the venue know what to expect, and poking at someone's thoughts on it may help them immeasurably.
If you think people are going to cut in front of you, provide a safety cushion large enough to account for that. Aggressive drivers almost universally will consume the forward part of the space cushion you leave. At most you will simply need to lift the accelerator to maintain space. The only time someone cutting in front of you should require hard braking is if they also brake hard.
It does require patience to do this, because all aggressive drivers will use the space you provide. But ultimately the travel time difference in flowing traffic is negligible.
I'm not sure it's that negligible. Mythbusters found that weaving in and out of traffic could save between 5 and twenty-five percent. Now A) Mythbusters did an experiment with an N of like 4 or something, along a single commute in the Bay Area, so it's basically anecdote and I'd love a better source if one existed, but it is at the very least proof-by-existence that larger impacts on travel time _can_ happen. And their non-weaving person was, if I recall from the video, not constantly decelerating to keep a buffer.
And from personal experience in some places, keeping such a buffer, in some traffic conditions would just literally be impossible. There are sometimes enough aggressive drivers such that they can just consume it faster than one would be able to create it. It is simply not always the case that you have sole power to create and keep the recommended buffer size (although very often it is and you can).
I keep a decent buffer whenever I am able, but at some point, you have to bow to road conditions.
Letting a large fraction of the freeway cut in front of you will turn normal driver's agressive. There's a balance to be struck.
I'm one of the faster drivers and I maintain a safe distance. (I usually have the most distance in rush hour.) It's very easy with adaptive cruise control or the other self-driving technologies that are on the market.
The only people who cut too close to me are driving recklessly.
That being said: If you're in the mode where people are constantly changing lanes in front of you, think a bit about how you're driving: On the freeway you're supposed to stay to the right except to pass, and you're expected to keep up with the flow of traffic. Are you going slow in the left lane? Are you driving too slow? Are you camping in the right lane by a busy interchange?
> and you're expected to keep up with the flow of traffic.
This is very state dependent, if we are talking about legality.
In WA state, for example, there is no "flow of traffic" law or similar. The limit is the limit, and any excess of the speed limit is illegal regardless of what all other drivers are doing. So even if the right/slow lane is going 100MPH through the 70MPH zone, you are legally expected to still go 70.
Thankfully we do have laws against left lane camping, but I rarely see it enforced.
Tailgating is against the law. Tailgating causes hard braking.
I recently pulled my travel trailer from OK to Charleston, SC and back. I never drive over 65 MPH for safety and MPG reasons. I always stay in the right hand, slow lane except if I have to take a left lane exit. Since I was always driving slower then everyone else, not once did I have to hard brake. Tailgating is a choice and a dangerous one.
I was never honked at, even by the crazy semi truck drivers.
Even that can be tricky, with the indecisive behavior people use when merging.
That one's easy: leave space in front of you for those merging onto the highway.
So much of road etiquette boils down to leaving adequate space so others can maneuver around you. Trying to optimize your travel by destroying any gaps as soon as they appear actually has the opposite effect.
While leaving space is nice, the person on the highway already typically has right-of-way.
James May calls this "Christian motoring". Golden Rule etc
This is accurate in many ways. I use the auto cruise feature on my car frequently and I notice several things happen unless I set the distance as close as possible (which I don’t like to do. ).
1. In any amount of traffic above “a few cars” people will cut in front of me, sometimes two, negating the safe following distance. Regardless of speed.
2. If I have a safe following distance while waiting for someone to get over. (I e they’re going 60, I want to go 70), if I have my distance set at a safe following distance, people are much more likely to weave / pass on the right. (My theory would be that the distance I’m behind the person in front of them signals that I’m not going to accelerate / pass when the person gets over ).
Disclaimer: I don’t usually have to drive in any significant traffic, and when I do (Philly, New York City), I’m probably less likely to use the automatic features because the appropriate follow distance seems to increase the rage of drivers around me.
I always wonder why so many people observe this when I never have. It makes no sense logically; it's the speed of the car in front of you that determines whether they should switch lanes, not the size of the gap behind it. There is no reason for them to cut in when your lane is no faster. Perhaps you are just the sole person leaving enough room for people to execute needed lane changes.
At any rate, even if people are continuously going around you like water going around a rock in a stream, you only have to drive 2 mph slower than traffic to constantly rebuild your following distance from the infinite stream of cutoffs. But my experience is the majority of following distance is eaten up by people randomly slowing down, not cutting in.
In the auto cruise example, it’s leaving perhaps 2 - 2.5 car distances. In close traffic the average human I would bet is leaving 1 or less then 1.
The issue is not that I can’t rebuild the following distance, the point I’m trying to make is that even if I constantly rebuild the following distance it sets off a cascading effect.
I’m following at set speed, car cuts in front, hits brakes, I now slow down, car behind me slows down, I rebuild following distance and car perhaps 7-8-9 cars behind me repeats because at some point the cascade magnifies to a larger slowdown behind.
Can I mitigate this by manually letting my distance be closer for a time, and slowly easing to larger ? Yes.
But if I allow the car to do it automatically, it will increase the follow distance at a rate that causes a cascade in tight traffic.
Though - I do think with these discussions on HN- it does depend on where you’re driving.
My experiences are centered on East Coast, thinking of route 80, 81, 83, etc. or Philly / New York City.
The driving experience is radically different in California, Florida , or the mid west.
I would say when driving in California people seem to navigate traffic better. (SF, LA) then on drivers on 80/81/83. (Or perhaps it’s due to better designed roads ).
Just drive in the slow lane and you won’t have this problem. The people cutting in front of you rarely want to be in the slow lane.
In Southern California the "fast lane" is the medium speed lane, and the "slow lane" is the actual fast lane. It's where people tend to weave in and out of traffic at 15-25 mph speed differentials.
I do drive in the slow lane frequently - and this still occurs. (My go to is to set my cruise 6-9 mph over the speed limit, if passing to smoothly pass and get back over, and spend as much time as possible in the slow lane. )
However - I will say most of the roads I’m on are 2 lanes of traffic. I will have to experiment and see if this doesn’t occur when there are 3 or 4 lanes.
> I do drive in the slow lane frequently - and this still occurs.
One part of your post was about people passing on the right. People won't do that if you're in the rightmost lane.
The idea of cruising 15km/h over the limit is absolutely crazy to me. That will get you 3 points and a minimum $500 fine here. We have "average speed zones" too!
I don't know you can find that traffic always bunches up. And if one is content to sit in the gaps in between, almost never anybody cuts in. I drove twice 1000 mile trips each way last year and it kind of worked. It's more of a mindset than anything else. Fastlane is not that fast or it would be empty, lol.
The fast lane isn’t always faster is very true! Haha
What I will say is some of this may be the difference between manual driving - and automatic.
If I’m manually driving - where my follow distance fluctuates more due to speed / traffic - almost no one cuts in.
If I am driving where I’m using the vehicle to maintain a perfect set distance, people cut in.
Again, anecdotal
> North America
Having driven all over NA, and Europe, I find it more prevalent in NA. Less distance, more people in large pickups throwing their weight around to make someone move out of the way.
And a design of giant freeway interchanges that require shifting lanes.
E.g. on the 405 in CA. 7 lines going South from the Valley towards Santa Monica.
That's 7 lanes you need to cross if you're in the HOV lane.
Does it really matter though? Is the end result just a couple of minutes later in a 30 minute commute? Or does it actually make a large difference in travel time?
> Is the end result just a couple of minutes later in a 30 minute commute?
More like a few seconds.
Every car that merges in front of you only costs you their following distance. If the average following distance is 1 second, then you are simply 1 second slower than you'd have otherwise been. So unless this is happening continuously every 30 seconds on your 30 minute commute, you will lose less than a minute.
The "but if I kept reasonable following distance, people will keep merging in front of me and I'll lose time" excuse is pretty thin given this analysis.
And an insurance claim can easily eat 40 hours of time between the insurance companies, other lawyers, buying a new car, medical appointments and recovery. That's 19,200 minutes you won't get back, or about 52 years of driving 1 minute slower each day.
Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
It doesn’t - but people don’t necessarily make rational choices regarding speed and driving. There’s a tendency to de personalize other drivers.
A slight increase in average speed really only makes a significant difference over long drives. (5 mph increase over a 10 hour drive can cut off 50 minutes).
Otherwise we are talking about small differences in efficiency.
(I would be very open to another opinion here.).
My opinions are formed by nearly ~2 million miles driven at this point, two different driving courses, and the motorcycle safety course.
One thing I truly think that’s overlooked is how reduced road noise in the vehicle cabin can both reduce driver fatigue, but also frustration in traffic.
> A slight increase in average speed really only makes a significant difference over long drives.
Yes! I feel like I can't shout this loud enough. In addition to maintaining a safe driving distance, just leave a little earlier. The stuff I've seen people do in order to save 20 seconds boggles the mind.
Unfortunately, I think commuters fall into a gamification mindset. They're trying to set a new lap record each day, and you can see the results just by driving (or walking) during rush hour...
> (5 mph increase over a 10 hour drive can cut off 50 minutes)
You can't really say that without knowing the starting speed, or alternatively the distance. All you can say is that a 5 mph increase over a 10 hour drive with get you 50 miles farther.
I would argue I can still say it /can/ cut off 50 minutes.
If you do a comparison of a 600 mile trip at 60 vs 55 you’re pretty close.
But yes, to be pedantic and more exact, you are spot on that it will get you 50 miles closer.
But in real world examples,
If you’re traveling 700 miles.
65 vs 70, 70 will reduce your time by 43 minutes.
So in certain scenarios, 5 mph difference must be able to save you 50 minutes ! ;)
(I do understand your point, and you’re correct. I’m just poking fun at it- my point with the mph difference is because 50 miles doesn’t have the same translation for most people at 50 minutes, but is a more accurate data approach. )
It used to be more of an issue when I was younger. Now that I'm older and more 'seasoned' (plus reflexes do slow down), I'm far more patient and have no issue maintaining a healthy following distance. I think the statistics reflect this in age vs. accident rate as well.
Unfortunately, sometimes over a 45 minute freeway commute, dropping back repeatedly means arriving 15 minutes or more later. Again, no big deal now, but it was somehow unacceptable when I was younger.
For your commute to take 4/3 the time, you would have to be averaging 3/4 the speed -- going 45 in a 60. That doesn't make sense because even going 55 would mean traffic pulled away from you rather than you having to drop back from it. Going 55/60ths the speed means you arrive in 60/55ths the time, or an extra 4 minutes on a 45 minute commute.
Okay I'm thinking of a very Shenzen kind of gizmo for your car that projects a bright red laser "keep out" box on the road in front of your car which is adjusted in size for your current speed.
We have something like that in eu with road markings. Both for clear weather and fog/rain. They mark some of the lines differently, and tell you how many lines you should have between you and the car in front. I think they were first trialed and then printed in several places.
Cool. But I'm thinking this box floats in front of your car on the road in real time. See you're driving and ahead of you on the road is this box. At night it might interfere with your night vision, might have to workshop that a bit.
There's a couple of bits of motorway in England with that, I'm pretty sure the M6 and the M1. There are white chevrons painted on the road and you keep two of them between you and the car in front.
Also "Keep Two Chevrons Apart" is going to be the name of my specialist Citroën breaker's yard.
I think a lot of people would just consider that a challenge.
On the occasion when I am towing our travel trailer, it is really incredible how unsafe that makes other drivers act around me. They will jam themselves in front of me at all costs, with no consideration for physics.
I see this happen to semi trucks on the highway. People interpret big open space as a place to merge. As you say, people have no consideration for why there might be a large space in front of a semi. A 50k lb+ truck hitting the back of a ~4k lb vehicle is not pretty.
See for a truck it could say "DEATH ZONE KEEP CLEAR" which would be accurate. Given that it's projected it could rotate through various languages too.
Can't wait to get blinded by lasers when cars are going over bumps and speed humps.
I know you were probably writing tongue in cheek, but that is one of those "solutions" that doesn't stop bad actors and makes good actors more miserable than usual.
There was a bike light that projects a bike lane onto the road, not sure why they are not more popular.
I live in a place that has harsh winter conditions with ice, gravel and the occasional loose tire stud flying into people's windshields, warranting frequent expensive replacements.
Somebody on the radio said that "just set the adaptive cruise control to max distance and your windshield will last way longer". It does feel overprotective at times, especially in slow and dense traffic, but I think there's a nice point in general.
Wow, I didn't know that was a thing. Been driving nearly 30 years, and never had a windshield chip.
I find it quite easy to hold/manage a tight space that people won't cut into, and don't have to brake hard, because I look ahead.
To be sure, it's more mentally taxing to hold a tight gap, so it's not something you want to do all the time, but it's fine.
False. I've done it many times - when you open up space two cars jump in, but the rest don't and so the space remains. But you notice those two cars and think it means more than it does.
Why does this require "hard" braking? If another car cuts in front of you just decelerate gently. You don't brake and wait until the gap is big enough (also if this is stop-and-go traffic, you should be trying to avoid braking at all)
My original observation wasn't worded as well as it could have been. I meant in situations where hard braking could be required on a moment's notice for no particular reason (e.g. Chicago freeways where everyone is doing 70 mph bumper-to-bumper and decreases to 10 mph all of a sudden).
Indeed, when someone changes lanes in front of me, I gently let off the accelerator, but as someone else noticed, that can enrage drivers behind me (I don't take it personally), and I'm definitely traveling fast enough to remain in the middle lanes.
The most frustrated people are those behind you, and if I was id soon be another person merging in front of you. If people are constantly merging in front of you, either everyone is going too fast or you are going too slow :)
Thanks for sharing. I'm genuinely impressed to hear someone publicly share a story of growing self awareness and improvement.
Kudos on you for acknowledging that your behavior changed! It is depressing how many people online are convinced that the emergency braking systems are too aggressive. The best is the cohort that insist these systems will be what causes accidents.
Not only are you less likely to crash -- you're less likely to cause a crash ten cars behind you.
This diagram changed how I think about following distance: https://entropicthoughts.com/keep-a-safe-following-distance
On the other hand, at age 20, with very high premiums, I got one of these devices which never beeped except on a few too-short exit ramps on highways in my city. The choice on these exits is to slow down traffic on the highway, or endure a "hard stop" by braking immediately when you are on the ramp, and coming to a full stop at the stop sign.
Just a few of these was enough that my "discount" was only a few dollars. I regret giving Progressive my driving data.
I had a somewhat similar experience - as I recall, most beeps happened as a result of a few stop lights with too-short yellows (e.g. the light changes yellow and you, even though you are below the speed limit, either panic stop or run the red light)
The only possible fix as a driver was to try to develop an intuition for spotting “stale” greens and start slowing down despite the green, anticipating the yellow.
I feel at least partially vindicated by the fact the lights in question eventually had their yellows extended.
If there's no extra exit lane, the right choice is to slow down traffic on the highway.
What will happen if there's some oil spill or brake failure at the point you think you should break hard?
The exit ramp is not sufficiently short as to be unable to stop safely, even with my old 2001 Toyota Corolla. It is however sufficiently short that you cannot stop without recording a 'hard brake' on the Progressive Snapshot device.
Obviously the calculus changes at rush hour when the exit ramp (and highway) begin to back up. And in those cases, yes, of course the correct answer is to slow down before the ramp, even if it means impeding traffic. (Or take the next exit.)
Just for fun, there's also a very short entrance ramp onto a 65mph highway in this city, which requires you to accelerate uphill from a stop sign with a very limited runway (~200 ft.) This entrance has been responsible for far more accidents and crashes than the exit I initially described.
Safe following is super important. Few years back about a month after I bought a new car I was driving to work keeping a larger than normal gap thanks to a bit of "new car" anxiety. I was in the left lane, keeping pace with a cluster of three cars ahead of me, two of them tailgating. I don't know what happened but within seconds the middle car swerved, side swiped a car in the middle lane then rear ended the lead car while the trailing car rear ended them. Four cars smashed up right in front of me. I was fine because I had plenty of time to slow down and pull onto the shoulder to clear the chaos.
Just like Lightning McQueen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvhFjVj7k44
I can only speak for Europe, but driving too closely to the driver in front is unfortunately how 90% of drivers drive.
Unless it’s in Netherlands, where it’s 100%.
Is there any vehicle that uses it's sensors to make a gentle suggestion about following distance?
It's probably the best single thing anyone can do to improve safety. It also reduces wear-and-tear on your car, and increases your fuel economy as a side benefit.
Why hasn't gamification of safe driving habits been built directly into the car itself before now?
My Cupra Born does this; it has a little line that it draws on a "road" with the car in front, and you have to put the car in front of the line to be safe. Its quite a fun little system haha, works well on me!
My wife's VW will show the following distance and if you are too close a small icon is displayed on the dash. I believe its warning you that if there is emergency breaking required for the car it will not be able to stop in time.
It also shows how close you are to the car Infront in "car length" units with a nice big indicator and the adaptive cruse control will follow that distance mostly on its own between 30-100mph
One of the few things I really don't like about my Subbie is that it tries to help braking.
I'm all in for traction control and to some extent ABS, but braking hard and upsetting the car's balance when you don't need it is dangerous.
Is it one of those cars that alters the brake boost depending on circumstances?
That drives me nuts. When you put x amount of force into the brake pedal, you should know you're going to get y amount of deceleration. Don't double the brake boost just because you decided it's an emergency due to some opaque criteria.
A lot of them do. My wife's VW beeps an alert if you're too close to the car ahead of you. It might be that it only activates above a certain speed.
I think it will also back down the cruise control (if set) if it detects that you are gaining on the car ahead. That might be MILs Toyota though.
I learned the "two second rule" in Driver's Education 45 years ago and generally follow that. Nothing more annoying than having the car behind you riding your bumper.
> Why hasn't gamification of safe driving habits been built directly into the car itself before now?
I am so glad it hasn't. Data point of one, but gamification now has the opposite effect on me: it's such a well-worn pattern that it just annoys me. It was great when it was novel. I wonder how many others feel the same but without sampling it's hard to know.
I concur with you regarding gamification. When I am aware of the gamification it fills me with exhaustion to annoyance to extreme frustration. This is especially true of things that I want to use for one purpose.
I also think some of the car sensors (Subaru especially) that are trying to make you safer are notoriously bad.
I also find the random “coffee break” notice on Subarus frustrating.
My personal examples: “eyes on the road” - triggered frequently by one pair of sunglasses I have, looking left to check blind spot, checking mirrors, etc.
“Hands on the steering wheel” - triggered occasionally on long drives when I have been giving input, but very light input.
I drove one of our Kia Niro EVs that we have at work recently, and it started warning me to take a break about fifteen minutes into the drive.
I'd barely left the yard, certainly hadn't made it across town.
It went off when I actually did stop for a coffee, but went on again 15 minutes after I left the car park.
I have to say its various combinations of bings and bongs and beeps were about the most distracting thing I've ever experienced in a vehicle.
As a passenger, I really notice the difference, and I wish more drivers (including professionals) would learn as you did. It probably saves energy as well, especially when driving in cities, although I guess it's marginal.
Back when I had a Prius, I made a conscious effort to avoid using the brake pedal during the highway portion of my commute. It made a small difference to fuel economy, but treating it as a game reduced the frustration with stop&go traffic.
I don't think it's marginal since accelerating the car needs way more energy than fighting loses due to wind and tyre resistance.
Also, a bad driver mis-breaking trips the cars behind into breaking too, which multiplies the energy waste and may also cause accidents through fatigue.
Mare experienced drivers will give you more leeway to avoid tapping the brakes with you, or simply go for a staring overtake.
People here in Tokyo follow at obscenely tight distance on the freeways and motorways. Drives me crazy. Don't have the data, but having driven here for over 20 years, I’d venture that short following distances must be one of the main causes of accidents on these types of roads. People are otherwise generally cautious and attentive drivers. When I’ve expressed frustration about it to locals in the past, the response is often “but if you leave more space, people will cut in!” To which I respond, “okay, and?!” I feel like a single big media campaign to improve following distances could result in a big improvement. So frustrating.
I was recently driving a friend and hit a mile-long backup at a freeway exit. At some point in the lineup, a car abruptly cut in front of me to merge into the line. The friend asked "why'd you let them in" - but I didn't let them in on purpose, I was just maintaining a reasonable following distance which people seem to interpret as "hey cut in here for free"
The balance between safe following distance and letting people cut in varies a lot by city. Maybe he learnt to drive elsewhere?
I remember being too aggressive when I got to the Bay Area, and learning how nice it was to be let into the lane I needed to avoid being forced on a 5mi U-turn. When visiting back home I was too nice and people told me so.
I've reached a balance. Aggressive enough not to be taken advantage of, but being nice to drivers in need, specially when it doesn't really change things for me, like when letting a driver in costs me nothing because of how bad traffic is.
It is called the zipper merge. You were in the wrong for waiting in the stophed lane and the other person right for passing all you thinking you are better.
I'm pretty sure the other person is not talking about a 2-to-1 lane merge.
Calling that person an idiot for your misunderstanding is not cool.
If you have to brake hard, it is still important to not brake harder than necessary, to give the cars behind you the best possible chance to react in time.
I have a friend who would also follow too closely to the cars in front and got one of these. Her rates went up and she eventually got into an accident (no injuries to anyone) because she would follow too closely and still break too hard.
Now she still has the machine, still follows too closely, and still breaks too hard in her new car...
Good it worked for you though!
A cousin of mine is abysmal to drive with as a passenger. He follows too closely to the car in front of him, regardless of lane / speed. He will slow down, follow closely, and then aggressively pass. Repeating ad nauseam.
No smooth maintaining of speed and nice passes as able without slowing down.
Surprisingly, his accidents have mostly seemed to involve gas pumps, barriers, and other obstacles at low speed.
This is left lane driving policy. I am like this, and I was not at first. What makes you drive like this is rush hour traffic. "Move up the lane or move out of the lane" is the sentiment, basically. As others have noted, it is essentially an adversarial process. If you drive nice, people cut in front and you're unable to drive nice to both those behind you and in front.
As one of my friends put it - driving in the US is like being in Whacky Races.
While i find everything about this post thoroughly dystopian; I will state that I don't break harshly, just about ever, my car still has it's original breakpads (they still have some life, about a cm and a half to two) and it had 107k on the odo. Never been in an accident outside of getting break-checked by an insurance scammer when I was 19, and a head on when i was stopped at a stop sign.
Although I keep a varying follow distance, if there is an open lane immediately adjacent to me, I don't care if i'm tailing someone a bit, but if I'm boxed then you better believe it's 6+ car distance.
I'm always surprised at the number of people that follow too closely.
This always stuck with me
The problem with increasing your following distance though is now you get other drivers cutting in, and you’re back to where you started
Only two, then people who maintain their lane are there and there is space.
> It was a lack of appropriate following distance.
Not in my case. I keep plenty of following distance, 9 times out of 10 my hard braking is because some idiot cuts into that following distance and brake-checks me.