You see it with maybe 1% of drivers - the ones that leave in excess of an entire car length in front of them when they’re stopped at a traffic light (I’ve even seen it where folks stop when no one is in front of them an entire car length behind the stopping line). This morning I watched a guy try to get into the left hand turn lane but he couldn’t quite make it through. Why? Because some hero felt he needed to leave ~24 - 25 feet between his car and the car in front of him. The guy trying to get into the left turn lane gave his horn a little tap to encourage this hero to move forward about 6 feet so and extend other drivers the courtesy of being able to access the left hand turn lane at the light. No dice. The guy wouldn’t budge and as a result several people added probably an extra 2-3 minutes to their morning commute. Taken by itself this is perhaps not a huge inconvenience, but it’s quite unnecessary and when you consider the cumulative effects of this sort of phenomenon over time it adds up over the years.
Is there some logical reason a driver would feel they need to provide that much space between their vehicle and the one in front of them at a traffic light? e.g. a neurotic fear of getting rear ended at 40 mph and getting pushed forward? or perhaps a pathological politeness where an individual wants to hold the proverbial door open and allow other drivers the opportunity to cut in line and enter the lane in front of them? Or is this a variant of the selfish individual who intentionally parks diagonally occupying two parking spaces so no one accidently opens their door and scratches the mint condition paint job of their 2016 Toyota Camry?
How much space do you typically leave between your vehicle and the vehicle in front of you when stopping? What do you consider reasonable and what do you consider excessive?
I generally stop with enough distance where I can just see the rear tires of the car ahead contacting the ground. That’s hardly scientific because the distance will vary with the type of car ahead of me and the kind of car I’m driving. But it’s nowhere near 25 feet; more like 10. Also, I like driving and I’m very aware of what’s going on around me. So if I know there’s a turn off lane to my right (or left) and someone is likely to want to be in it, I try to avoid being the oblivious dolt blocking the car behind me. But then I’m also the guy who never uses his phone when in a car, even if stopped at a light or in traffic.
ETA: Looks like the rear wheel sighting thing isn’t all that unusual.
Probably a few feet, not enough to see the tires of the car in front.
This is Jersey, and we do tend to drive closer than elsewhere.
With that said, whenever I see those road rage videos on YouTube I begin to see the benefits of leaving a gap in front–it provides an escape route if some nutcase in front comes out of their car to debate etiquette with a tire iron.
He was probably texting. That should be a capital offense. I’m sick of this kind of shit, even at a stoplight you have to keep your eye on the other cars, be ready to go when the light turns green (after checking for all the idiots running red lights). Don’t wait for the car in front of you to start moving to remember what you’re doing, you can see the light turn green, you know the cars in front of you will be moving, be ready when it’s your turn. You don’t have to jump out like a jack rabbit, but you certainly don’t need to wait for 3 cars in from of you to get through the light before you start moving again.
I posit we would reduce our fuel consumption, if those rolling up to a light can stop close to the next car rather than stopping short. EVERY SINGLE CAR behind the short stopper now has to overcome that same distance when the light changes.
Bad driving behavior in left turn lanes is definitely my number one trigger when I’m on the road. People who fall asleep and don’t move when the arrow turns green for a whopping 3 seconds are at the top of my list of people to kill in case “The Purge” ever becomes a reality.
My worst experience: One time, the guy directly in front of me stopped a good 25 feet from the stop line in the left turn lane. He was so far back that his car failed to trigger the sensor that makes the arrow go green. Consequently, instead of getting a green arrow, the light remained red while the main through light turned green and then red again, allowing cross traffic their turn. Incredibly, the guy still didn’t move. I couldn’t pull around him to the left because of a cement median, and through traffic to my right prevented me from pulling around him to the right. In other words, I was trapped. In an unwise fit of temper, I got out of my car, walked up to his driver’s side window (where he was busy texting), and rapped loudly on it. Shocked, he looked up at me. “If you don’t move up, you don’t trigger the left turn sensor, and we’ll be here forever!!!” I stalked back to my car, but he did move up.
I’ve tried to get people to move forward but never went out of my car. In my case, it was people who stopped at a normal distance but the sensors were a few feet forward from the normal stopping position and they weren’t very sensitive, so you had to rock forward and backward a few times.
A few times I got so tired of waiting for the light to naturally turn, which could take more than 5 minutes, that I beeped at the car in front of me while yelling out “you need to rock back and forth!” In neither case did they hear my instructions (since I didn’t leave the car but merely rolled down the window). A couple of times they didn’t move. The other couple of times they thought I wanted them to run the red light, so they did – which tripped the sensor, allowing me to go a few seconds after that.
Shoot you? Heck, from now on I’m going to keep a cigar box in my car filled with ‘good citizen fistbump pins’ to award to good deed doers like yourself when the occasion warrants.
They were going to cover that piece of distance regardless, whether before or after stopping. I can’t honestly see how it makes any difference.
If you mean that they are braking more than they need to and stopping short, when they could have rolled that little bit of extra distance for free, I think that would be assuming they hadn’t allowed for rolling to a stop at the short position.
If you’re keeping cars from getting through the light and they have to sit and idle longer as a result there is some small increase in overall fuel consumption. Hardly a problem compared to the excessive idling and slow speed of travel in traffic jams though.
You can come drive near me then. So many people turning left here just go, so, slow, through, the, light ThenTakeTheFuckOffAt200MPH. They start going, hit the brakes, half stop, go slow, hit the brakes again. Then around the corner they speed off and go way over the speed limit only to be caught again when they go around the next corner.
As for the OP, I pull up close to people but leave some room, I still drive a stick and hate when people pull up on me on the hills. But if someone in front of me stops way back and then moves forward after I stop I don’t move forward until the light changes. What’s the point of moving forward just to stop again. I will move forward if someone behind me wants to turn right and I might be blocking them.
Oh, I see - the sparser line means fewer people get through when it goes green.
I wonder mow big an effect that really is though, because a less dense line of cars ought to make a smoother, more efficient start in driving through the junction when the light goes green (a line of cars close together will often do a jerky stop-start wave when they all try to begin moving)
It can’t be much of an effect. There have to be a lot of other ways to save a lot more fuel. Even in IC engines it won’t be that long before most start on demand instead of idling anyway.
The worst is when you’re in a left-turn lane and the first person in line doesn’t pull up far enough to trigger the left-turn light. There’s a light near me like this, and if it’s not triggered, it doesn’t turn green at all - you just miss the entire cycle.
At the least, enough to see their rear tires and enough space to be able to turn out of my lane, without reversing, if I had to.
What’s excessive depends on the traffic and type. I’m generally fine with ~2 car lengths, depending on the vehicle (I certainly don’t mind if large trucks are a bit further back). Anything past that in a passenger car becomes questionable, especially if the person is blocking access to other lanes.
Of course, there are also times where the car in front of the “offending” person had stopped, then decided to inch up…then stop…then inch up again, as some people do, thus creating the gap. It’s all situational.
I pull up pretty close, maybe a couple of feet. A lot of people say, “Oh, I want to leave space in case someone rear-ends me” but a rear-end collision of a car stopped at a red light is very unusual and you being that last one in line when it happens is astronomical odds (although it happened to my son).
I toot at people who block me from a left- or right-turn lane when they leave a lot of space, and when someone is obviously making a conscious effort to pull up and let me by I always wave “thank you”.
There’s one kind of exception, though: if I’m in a left turn lane that fills up, I’ll get as close as I can to the car in front of me, to do my bit to maximize the number of people who can fit into the turn lane. Or if the left turn lane doesn’t fill up, but the adjacent through lane often fills up far enough so that drivers turning left can’t get into the turn lane, I’ll pull up as close as I can to the car in front if I’m in that through lane.
That’s what annoys me about driving in a Prius. I’m trying to be a good citizen and keep to the right hand lane and I leave a car’s distance between me and the other car (which isn’t bad like it would be if I were in the left lane). So when the car in front of the car in front of me starts, I start my car in electric mode but at least 1/3 of the time the car in front of me doesn’t take off on cue and starts so slow that I have to brake to almost a complete stop before they start. Then they take the fuck off and I have to either slam on the gas to keep up or keep the acceleration below the Red Zone and have the car behind me think that I’m the bad guy.
