::hanging head in shame
Ok, I admit that I’m one of those people that many of you hate. I usually leave a pretty big gap when I stop behind a car. Part of it now I think is habit. I remember “learning” to make sure that I can see the back tires on the car in front of me touching the pavement. I usually stop a little farther back than I need to and then roll up a little.
I’ll try to do better, I promise!
I can’t answer the OP, I just needed to confess.
It is actually a legal requirement here. If you get rear ended and pushed into the car in front (while stationary) you - or your insurers - are responsible for the damage caused to the car you hit.
I was standing in traffic and hit from behind by a car that was launched into the back of mine by another colliding into the back of theirs. The car driver behind me was responsible for the damage to my car (write-off), not the driver of the car who had hit hers. I was just lucky enough to have left enough of a gap not to collide with the car in front. Luck, not planning as I was previously unaware of the requirement to leve the said clearance.
Myg, if you check, I think you might find it’s a civil liability issue rather than traffic law, as it is here, but that’s easily dealt with. The guy you are rammed into sues your insurance, you sue the guy behind, he sues the guy behind, and the entire lot ends up with the driver of the out of control garbage truck that snashed into the rear of a row of cars waiting at a red light. This exact scenario happened to a friend of mine - his wife was in one of the middle cars, and her insurance company was involved, but it was nothing to do with her. It was between insurance companies, and cost her not a cent.
If it weren’t this way, what would be the legal minimum distance for the owner of a micro car to stop behind the car in front, in case a fully laden ‘B Double’ twin-trailer semi were to smash into them? You’d be leaving a hundred yards between cars, and it would be unworkable.
Me, I stop about three feet off the other guy, and that’s served me well for several decades.
You could well be right there Loaded. I always keep my distance now just in case though.
I do find that as posted above that you lose no time at all if you are a couple of cars back as you can be rolling the instant the one in front moves and can judge when the lights will change, it is always ten seconds after the cross traffic ones turn red here, or the pedestrian signal if there is one.
Think about the people trying to get into the left turn lane (the one that probably cycles before the forward moving traffic) but can’t because there’s 4 cars occupying the space that 10 cars would normally take up.
There’s an intersection by my house that’s like that and it can cause a 5 minute delay. If forward moving traffic is backed up, there might only be one car in the left turn lane and nobody else can get into it because people won’t pull up a reasonable distance.
Everyone who drives should get behind a parked car and see how much space they need to leave and still cut the wheel and go around without backing up. In most cases, it’s no more than 3 or 4 feet. My Ford Freestar can do it with 2 1/2 feet of clearance.
(See StrayKat’s post)
I was once sued for $20,000.00 for being the middle car in a three car end to end collision in just such a scenario. As it happens, I “won”, but after missing more than a week’s worth of work for court dates and arbitration, and a shitload of sleepless nights figuring out how I was going to pay that off. Not to mention my own injuries, which were at least aggravated if not caused by my car hitting the one in front, more than the car hitting me from behind.
So, sorry left turners, but fuck y’all. I’m keeping back a safe distance. Don’t like it? Move to New Jersey.
A fellow victim of overseas security training, I see. I still do it out of habit, and it actually saving me from being clobbered on one occasion. Stopped at a light behind another vehicle, I spotted in the rear-view mirror a car bearing down at excessive speed. Sure enough, he locks up the brakes and starts hydroplaning on the wet road. I knew he was going to rear-end the car behind me, so I whipped the wheel to the left and pulled into the next lane, which was empty. The guy smacks the car behind me, which is driven about halfway in to the spot I just vacated.
I did get a bit nervous driving around downtown Seattle not long ago; when the hills are steep enough that my car rolls backwards just a bit when I take my foot off the brake, and I have an automatic, having somebody right on my ass scares me. But I’m talking about an extra couple of feet, not a couple of carlengths.
I didn’t want this comment to escape unnoticed. I see this on a daily basis as I live right by railroad tracks and commute by train every day.
There is a very clear white line drawn directly behind where the crossing gates come down. This is where I stop. But I see lots of people who will stop all the way behind the “Railroad Xing” lettering painted on the street, which is to say, a LONG way back. I really don’t understand this behavior at all. Like Bearflag70, I’ve often wondered if it was a fear of derailment issue. The only other thing I can think of is that some people really find train horns obnoxiously loud and might be trying to stay as far from the source as possible.
Is is a freight train line? I’ve seen people do that to hedge their bets, so if it’s a really long train (defined by an algorithm involving number of cars, speed of train and how late you are for your meeting) you can flip a bitch and go the other way to try and beat the train to the next crossing. If you pull right up to the mark and someone else comes in on your bumper, you don’t have room to turn around.
Okay, so far we’ve got fears of derailment, noise, and there’s probably other possible reasons such as junk being kicked up or thrown from a speeding train or being rear ended or accidentally hitting the gas. Now what’s the benefit to pulling right up to the white line?
Could be. The locations I’m talking about are strictly commuter rail lines where the train comes and goes in less than 5 seconds, but people who aren’t regulars to the neighborhoods in question may not know that, so your explanation is reasonable.
I don’t see it as a “benefit” per se. It’s just that when I learned to drive, I was taught to pull up to boundary lines (such as the crosswalks at intersections being discussed in this thread). Since I see no reason to deviate from that practice at a railroad crossing, I was trying to figure out why other people would.
You’d never get anywhere doing that in Melbourne (Florida.) On several intersections the sensors that notice cross-traffic are located absurdly close to the main road, so that in order for the light to switch at all you need to pull up until you’re literally only a couple feet from cross traffic. If not, you can wait forever.
I ought to do what I saw someone else do, which is get out of my car and walk up to the offenders/overly cautious people (I wouldnt want to pull up so close if I didnt know I had to, either,) and tell them they need to pull up to the sensor. I’m too afraid the light will turn in the middle of my doing so.
As it is, I honk at them if the light hasn’t turned in about 2 minutes (which is their normal cycle,) and inevitably what happens if I honk enough is not that they move up, but they run the red light. After which, of course, the light changes cause they moved into the detection zone :rolleyes:.
Heh. I got rear ended as the first car in a three car “sandwich”, and I suppose I might have escaped if the guy behind me had left room. I live on a side street to a moderately busy 4 lane street with no turn lane. To make left turns onto the side streets you have no choice but to signal, slow down with ample lead time, and hang about in the #1 lane waiting for oncoming traffic to clear. It actually gets worse when you consider that there are houses whose driveways open directly onto that street, and people living in them are likely to signal left hand turns and sit there between streets. I’m surprised there aren’t more rear enders on that street than there are.
On an open country road, not much. On a city road, the line of cars waiting at the tracks often impacts nearby intersections. Cars get backed up to the intersection. Big gaps by the tracks means fewer cars can cross the intersection to get into the space between the intersection and the tracks.
They’re going to have to wait for the train to pass either way. I don’t see how one or two cars waiting on one side of the intersection instead of the other makes a difference, but I do see how not wanting to be too close to a speeding train for the lead car does.
If you’ve every sat close to a passing train, you may have experienced the unpleasant optical illusion created. It can feel as if you’re being drawn into, or along with, the train. The closer you are, the faster the train and the more the train dominates your vision, the stronger the feeling.
When I’m stopped a ways back, it’s usually because I stopped at a reasonable distance, but the traffic in front of me has been progressively edging forward while waiting for the red light. That behavior is one of my pet peeves, and I will not participate…besides, I enjoy watching the head of the driver behind me explode. (Never mind that he is going through the intersection at exactly the same time no matter where he waits during the red)
I do note if I am blocking access to a turn lane, and will pull up and over (within the lane) to allow access if possible, and having that space there allows me to move over that bit, which isn’t possible if I were parked on the bumper in front of me. IFF Joe Wantstoturn uses his blinker so I don’t have divine his intentions through mind reading. I will also pack in tight if traffic needs to stack up to clear a preceding light. Yes, I realize typical drivers pay nowhere near this much attention to the needs of other traffic.
I’ll also stop a few feet back from the intersection when I am first in line. I pay attention to the light, cross traffic, and the cross traffic right turn arrows and pedestrian signals, so I am typically rolling at 5 mph or so when the light turns green, sadly, the folks who have edged their way beyond the crosswalk never figure out that my way gets me there sooner.
Finally, leaving a bit of a gap allows a motorcyclist a chance to escape( between lanes if need be) when the car arriving behind ignores their presence.
What I don’t understand is why are cars comfortable 3 feet from my bumper on the interstate at 75 MPH but require 5 car lengths at the traffic light going 10 MPH?
If you don’t have a parking brake that lets you perform a proper hill start in such situations, why not just use your left foot on the brake pedal?