One mile constitues a “practicable” distance to deviate from “drive right” protocols, AND
A given road has intersrctions LESS than every mile, THEN
“drive right” is largely theoretical, as a sufficiently large % of motorists are violating that dictum, for legitamate reasons. (Drive right doesn’t work below a certain % participation rate.)
Then, on a sufficiently crowded roadway, ALL cars are at “minimum safe following distance (or less)”, and you CAN’T change lanes at will, because there’s no “empty spaces” to put your car (and thus fails the “practicability” test.)
“Drive rignt” is a good rule for non-congested Interstates, and not much else.
I’m not convinced that tailgating is that dangerous. I have had my C6 vertebrae broken twice from rear end collisions. The first one was the road rage incident I mentioned earlier. The second time was from a driver that was having a epilepsy fit at the time. I have had other rear end collisions as well, never by a tailgater. I was always hit by someone who simply failed to stop and hit me at pretty high speed.
The last on was by a woman on drugs who was a quarter mile behind me going about 55 when I had to stop for traffic. She didn’t notice the brake lights. Fortunately, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw here coming so I had time to brace for impact on that one, otherwise I might not be here to argue this point.
I do fully agree that tailgating will increase the likelihood of an accident, but not the severity. Speed differential increases the severity and speed differential takes distance. I will also agree that “barely tailgating” might be the most dangerous. That is someone who is technically tailgating, that is less than one car length for every 10 mph, but are “almost” one car length for every 10 mph. For example 5 car lengths at 65 mph. They increase the likelihood for and accident and there is enough distance to to develop a speed differential if they don’t don’t apply their brakes.
But in most cases, rear end collisions occur when one car stops a little quicker than the car behind it. The second car applies their brakes as soon as they see the brake lights so they end up hitting just as the car in front stops, the car in back is only doing a few mph at the time. Mostly this results in a little body damage and few injuries, especially in todays cars with head restraints and energy absorbing bumpers.
I will also give you that tailgating could result in a secondary collision such as hitting a child that ran into the road and that is dangerous for the child.
The main point I wanted to make is to not do anything unpredictable when someone is on your tail. The best thing to do is ignore them and drive as if they weren’t there. I will not slow down to encourage them to pass, as there really might not be any good opportunities to pass if traffic is heavy. I won’t so anything to stop them from passing though if they get a shot at it. I won’t speed up either because I am probably already going too fast or there are people in front of me and I am not going to tailgate them. Since I am often in the speeding ticket zone, I consider them passing me a favor, collecting that speeding ticket that I probably deserve.
If you want to “brake check” just make sure that if you do it in Tennessee, that there are no witnesses around. You can find yourself in jail, even if it doesn’t result in an accident. But if you have to stop, then you have to stop.
No brake tapping or anything that could aggravate the tailgater here. I treat them as a diseased person, someone with a psychiatric problem. The truth is our personality becomes more evident when behind the wheel. Suddenly you see the quiet shy guy honking the horn and driving like a maniac.
Now if you know the guy is really sick with some psychiatric disease, wouldn’t you just try to stay away? Just give them room to leave/get out of your life. Pretend you don’t notice them. I have a few stories of tailgating leading to road rage and eventually someone being seriously hurt.
@galant: I believe that tailgating is classic bullying behavior. The “correct” solution to the problem–pulling over and slowing down–is a policy of appeasement.
Appeasment of bullies doesn’t work any better today than it did in the late '30s.
@meanjoe75fan
I did not say pull over or slow down, I said ignore them. The bully is appeased when he/she knows they have bullied you. If you are ignoring them, you are not giving them any pleasure.
At the school playground, the best way to deal with a bully is sometimes to knock him down, but if you don’t have to, there are better ways to deal with bullies.
In the professional world, you have to get creative to deal with bullies. Knocking them down would feel good, but you’d be smarter to use modern behavioral modification techniques.
In traffic, on the other hand, the goal is to avoid collisions, even the ones that aren’t your fault. We’re not 12 years old anymore. If you think you’re going to teach anyone a lesson by lowering yourself to their level by responding to aggression with more aggression, I’ve got news for you. You might as well urinate into the wind. You’d at least accomplish something by emptying your bladder.
I was thinking about this on my commute this morning, and from a physics standpoint, others are right when they say tailgating, on its own, doesn’t create that much danger. The real danger of tailgating is that it freaks out other drivers, and it turns their concentration from what is in front of their vehicles to what is behind their vehicles, and that makes the roads more dangerous for everyone.
The reason people tailgate is that they are hoping to bully you into getting out of their way. The best way to discourage that behavior is simply to ignore tailgaters and pretend they’re not there.
However you decide to handle tailgaters, responding to aggression with aggression isn’t going to help you or anyone else. It isn’t going to teach anyone a lesson. Behavioral analysts have studied the question of how to best modify behavior, and using the most proven methods to modify their behavior isn’t appeasement.
Tailgating?? Don’t move to Massachusetts!! Only place I’ve ever heard of where there’s a 60 car pileup on a straight stretch of highway on a perfect nice sunny summer day. All because everyone was driving too close to the car in front. If you leave anything close to proper distance from the car in front of you…you’ll have 5 cars cramming in that spot because you are NOT keeping up with traffic. You either give in and drive like the other idiots who tailgate…or you just live with it.
To play the devil’s advocate here. If you’re finding yourself being tailgated all the time, then it’s probably not everyone else who is the problem. My stepfather is a prime example of this. He’ll get on the interstate, immdieately get into the left lane, set the cruise control at 70 MPH and then spend the next two hour complaining about how everyone is tailgating him.
Yep , traffic jams start at the front.
My niece stiil has no clue how to merge ON to the freeway. She gets tailgated on the on ramp every time. I’m certain they’d push her faster if they thought they could.
’‘Go NOW Val.’’ I told when riding with her once.
’‘But what if there’s cars there when I get there ?’’
’‘That’s the point. There WILL be cars there when you get there. your turn is that space that is moving at 75mph…go get it ! …they’re not going ot stop and wait for you.’’
Hmmm. Isn’t attempting to control the behavior of a bully, bullying itself? I think just common courtesy will go a long way. Some people really are in a hurry and sometimes they need to get to surgery. You never know what’s going on in the life of the person behind you. I usually like to move right along and I have had gramps in front of me going 55 on a three lane stretch, making sure to enfore the law. So just move over if someone wants or needs to go faster without all the antics and everyone will be a lot calmer. Now I don’t tailgate, and I’m not condoning it, but just sayn’ no point forcing a confrontation.
Oh, I think my brake-checking days are behind me…just way too many people that are armed out there. And I’m not habitually slow…generally drive PSL+5 on the highway, as that’s the fastest you can go and pretty much never have to worry about a speeding ticket. When it comes to overtaking slower traffic, I maintain at least a 5MPH differential, as I don’t want to hang out in anybody’s blind spot.
The vast majority of drivers can handle this; a small but consistent minority cannot handle ANYBODY slowing them down from 90 MPH, even for 30 seconds. To which I say, “I” wasn’t put in God’s green earth to facilitate YOUR lawbreaking!
As for countermeasures well short of brake-checking, slowing down 5 MPH and hitting the hazards communicates the idea, “You want to pass? Great–just as soon as you maintain a safe follwing distance.”
If you're finding yourself being tailgated all the time, then it's probably not everyone else who is the problem.
I don’t care you who are or how you drive…you drive in Massachusetts…you’ll get tailgated…PERIOD. The ONLY way to avoid it…is to drive at 3am at 100mph…and even then you may get tailgated in Massachusetts. That’s the way they drive…I’ve even seen drivers in driver-ed cars tailgating…I would think the driver-ed teacher would tell the driver to back off or apply their brake.
“you drive in Massachusetts…you’ll get tailgated…PERIOD. The ONLY way to avoid it…is to drive at 3am at 100mph”
And then it will be the cops on your tail wondering why you’re impeding traffic!
"I would think the driver-ed teacher would tell the driver to back off or apply their brake. "
That’s a sign of weakness.
One thing I’d like to point out is this idea of speed differential not causing much damage from tailgating. When you’re departing from the expressway pavement at 70 mph because some dude just tapped you from behind going 75 mph, tell me about the limited damage because he was only going 5 mph faster when he hit you. I had a girlfriend when I was younger whose Dad was killed like that. Launched his car off the guardrail and flew through the air before crashing off the side of the expressway…
He didn’t do that with a 5mph differential. There is more to that story. The driver in back must have kept pushing, and that is not tailgating, that’s vehicular assault.
Ya know one day in my ignorant youth I had a tailgaiter, so I was like lets see what you can do! I sped up to insane speed on a curvy back road, and he was still on my tail till he slipped off the road. So I stopped and called 911, killed by a tree he was. I knew my limits, he did not know his.
I’ve found that shifting my inside rear view mirror to the night setting has caused some tailgaters to back off. I guess if they see it isn’t working they might try a different tactic. When they back off, I pull over at the earliest reasonable opportunity. If not, I just might stay in the lane and force them to go left or right to get past me.
