It’s a lie that if you can’t see his mirrors, then he can’t see you. Well, literally it’s not a lie – he can’t see you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he can’t see your vehicle.
In my experience, at a certain traffic density, another person will pull into your following distance. Now you have not enough following distance, and need to slow down to open it up. Now another person pulls in. Again you slow down. Now ANOTHER person pulls in. AGAIN you slow down. Soon you are all but driving backwards…you still have no safe following distance…and a lot of unnecessary lane-changing is taking place.
Away from big cities, this doesn’t seem to happen much. Last time I drove across several states, people would sit happily in theikr lanes with good following distance for hours…when those same drivers suddenly began to close following distance and cut over on each other without signaling, it was a sure sign we were entering the orbit of a major city.
Sailboat
That’s not my experience. I always drive with a nice big space in front of me and I always seem to get where I’m going.
Yes. Lane discipline and maintenance of following distance are simply abandoned when you hit urban freeways. Even by the same drivers who are driving sensibly outside the city. People passing on the right as a matter of course is another good indicator that you are in an urban traffic pattern. Some of it is inevitable - where you are going simply FORCES you to get across 4 lanes of traffic after having just entered in order to split left a mile up the road. My not wanting to go through 47 traffic lights on the surface streets means I’m going to hop on the freeway and get off again in 3 exits, and have to move left and right again within that space to avoid the exclusive turn lane for another highway …
I believe the reason urban freeways aren’t just one long continual accident is that most of the drivers are locals who know where their exits and interchanges are, and know what kind of irrational behavior to expect in their vicinity.
Cite?
Because good drivers (cars and trucks alike) take into consideration what is going on behind them when they make decisions. If the truck driver can’t see you, he is operating with limited information and more likely to make a bad decision (they do have good ways to keep track of cars, though).
In general, you can assume that truck drivers are good drivers. Limiting a good driver’s ability to make good decisions normally increases your chances of being involved in something unpleasant.
Oh wait. He’s been banned already.
Anyone know why? I see nothing in his thread history to explain it…
Just guessing here, but probably a returning sock/troll. If you really want to know, email a mod.
What Sailboat said.
I do try to maintain a safe distance, but once the traffic reaches a certain density, dropping back for every gap-jumping road-hog results in a non-trivial loss in speed and time. And, given that people keep dropping into the gap and closing it, continually dropping back doesn’t really make the road safer either.
As Sailboat also noted, this is more of a problem around large cities. A few years ago, when a friend and i drove from Baltimore to Austin, TX, we would often spend hours on the road sitting about eight or ten car lengths back from the same car. Everyone would fall into a comfortable speed, and a good, safe distance between vehicles would be maintained. Incidentally, sparsely-populated states like Arkansas are also the only places in the US where i’ve seen traffic follow the European style of right-lane-unless-overtaking behavior. It was bliss.
Related anecdote: My friend and I were driving west through BFE Utah on I-70 when we realized we were VERY low on gas with nothing around for miles.
I suggested he draft behind a truck. He tried, but the truck driver apparently didn’t like it and gently applied the brakes in an effort to get us to back off.
We got the message, slowed down, rolled up the windows, and kept the AC off. It was hot and miserable, but we eventually made it to a gas station.
The end.
I sort of thought it had been answered prior to this point. If he can’t see you, then you have to assume he doesn’t know you are there (he might, actually–but you never know) and thus he may do something like slow down suddenly for an oncoming exit ramp that he wouldn’t do to the same degree if he knew someone was tailgating him.
There’s basically a lot of decisions you make on the road based on who all is around you. I personally know that I have a tendency to say, switch lanes or take exit ramps in a different manner when I’m alone for miles in every direction on the interstate versus when I’ve got some asshole tailgating me.
Ultimately though all of this is a moot point, tailgating isn’t safe, period, don’t do it. Of bigger importance is when you’re tailgating a trucker YOU can’t see what’s going on in front of him. If some emergency happens in front of him, and he has to slam on his brakes, you’ll have no forewarning and end up slamming into an 80,000 lbs. truck at 65 + mph.
While I will reiterate the warnings about the dangers of following too closely, I was rather surprised to learn from the Mythbusters experiment how far away you can be and still benefit from the draft. As Mr. Rosewater pointed out, a 10% improvement from being within 100 feet is pretty remarkable, and at that distance, you’re probably still visible to the trucker.
I would like to know what speed the Mythbusters test was conducted at. Using the old 2-second rule, 100 feet is a safe distance for 34 mph (60 mph is 88 ft/sec). It’s still a bit too close for interstate highway speeds.
Sorry, I thought I had it in my orriginal post. The said the test runs were all done at 55 mph.
In the same Mythbusters episode, they looked at being hit by a blown tire tread at close range, and at (IIRC) a speed of 45 MPH, a chunk of tire tread smashed through a car window and decapitated their test dummy.
You’re still well inside the danger zone. If the subject comes up, I always advise people to avoid driving behind or alongside a truck. There’s always the obvious danger of panic stops and sudden lane changes, but there are other dangers. In winter ice, or large chunks of snow may come off. On flatbeds, and other open rigs, cargo or equpment may come loose and fall off. Not all trucks are well maintained, and even on ones that are, things may be overlooked, or vibrate loose and fly off. Then there are tires that separate, especially in hot weather. There are many good reasons not to tailgate a truck and I don’t think saving a few dollars in fuel is worth the potential danger.
Thank you. That’s basically what I was driving at (no pun intended) in my previous post.
Speaking for myself-I haven’t driven commercially for a while now, but still have a CDL-A, I’d put why it (drafting) is annoying as hell it two words: situational awareness.
When I’m operating a large vehicle, I’m sharing the road with everyone else. I’d like to know who is really close to me in all directions, such that if something turns ugly, I can react appropriately and safely. Being a second cousin to the ICC bar ratchets up my concern, because if I brake or need to make an evasive maneuver, I’m additionally worried that you, oblivious to what I’m seeing because you’re counting the chips on my conspicuity tape, will dart around me into the place I’m heading to avoid the problem you haven’t seen. File that under: Plan, Bad.
Stay back, see what I’m seeing, and stay alive.
Don’t I know it! I was once following (not too closely) a tow truck when it hit a bump and a four-pound sledge hammer bounced off the rear bed and went skittering across the road in front of me. If I had been much closer, it could have been ugly, because I was on a motorcycle!
Yes, I tried to make clear that I wasn’t recommending the practice, just surprised at how much difference drafting made.
Not to mention the cost of the citation the cop will write you up for.
IIRC the 2 second rule only applies to cars, while following trucks it was 1 second and motorcycles it was 3 seconds (if you were driving a car). The reason is that trucks take much more distance to stop, motorcycles take much less.