This is what I learned in Drivers Ed. more than 30 years ago and it has proved itself to be a viable and trusty method for ensuring that I have the ability to get out from behind a stopped car without extending driving lines unnecessarily.
I regularly drive in some pretty awful traffic on some awfully designed streets/lights and when I see people do “stop-light man-spreading” with traffic backed up (like where there are cars that have a green but can’t move forward without blocking an intersection) I cut in and fill the space up, if I can. Less often, I do it even if traffic isn’t backed up. A couple times I’ve smiled and waved, like I was thanking them for being so considerate as to save me a space. 
I don’t really mind this behavior unless it’s at some tricky intersection where the space causes serious problems for other people.
The simplest (and most common) example I see is when there is a drive-through (e.g. Dunkin’ Donuts) that has a short entrance drive and people leave forty foot gaps between themselves and the next car, resulting in other customers lining up out in the street.
When I lived in Philadelphia I’d occasionally travel into some of the really bad areas to sight-see. People would leave a lot of space in front of their vehicles to allow room for evasive action in case of attempted car jacking or similar.
My thinking is that on approach, you already have momentum. Why not roll to the most forward possible position. If you waste that distance by applying a brake, then you have to move your car through that space, that otherwise would have been behind you. And so on for everyone already at a stop.
I guess it’s more of a thought experiment. But I think I’m correct. 
It doesn’t have to be an issue at all. If I’ve pulled up right to someone’s bumper in a line of traffic, and the light in front of us turns green, his car will start moving and I’ll wait until there’s a bit of a gap before I start moving. If I’m ten or fifteen feet behind another car, and the light turns green, I just don’t wait so long to start moving. As long as I cross the intersection with the same gap in both cases, then the same number of cars can get through the intersection before the light turns red again.
Which is not to say that stopping short is never a problem. If you could pull forward to get into a turn lane, and allow cars in the through lane to proceed, you should.
these are probably drivers who feel that they learned in driving class about leaving one or two car lengths distance between the two cars. These people also have never realized that all the cars around them pull up to the car at a stop light. There may also be a subset of people who have rear-ended cars before, and they never want to do that, again.
It’s supposed to be one car lenth per ten miles per hour of speed. So 0 while waiting for a light.
It’s much worse these days because of cell phones and texting. People think stopping their car for even a millisecond is a reason to text someone and say “I’m stopped at a light”.
Yeah, strictly speaking, every time you apply your brakes you’re wasting energy. By rolling as far forward as possible, you’re covering a bit more distance, losing some energy to friction and rolling resistance (which you would have done anyway), and braking a bit less.
But all other factors do not stay constant. Suppose you and I are driving side-by-side and there’s an intersection with a red light ahead. You think that rolling an extra ten feet before stopping is saving you some gasoline. But suppose that when we saw the intersection, I lifted my foot off the gas pedal ten feet sooner than you did, in anticipation of stopping ten feet sooner. Same amount of braking over the same distance, so the energy used is the same.
My car sits low enough that I can almost see most cars’ rear tires even at a couple feet so that rule of thumb is no good. I leave at least a car length or so but I try not to be too obnoxious. Generally I don’t care about getting rear-ended into the car ahead, but when it’s me in a sea of American Pickup penis extensions that’s essentially a decapitation scenario for me, and my wife would be annoyed with that. The people that really freak me out are the ones that leave a couple car lengths in front of them at a stoplight…when they’re at the front of the line!
This happens more often than not around here. The first car in line is too far back from the crosswalk to trip the signal changer. Sometimes it takes the fool three cycles to realize they need to pull up.
A few weeks ago I wrote an entire mental Pit thread about this topic, as I sat in the drive-through line at Wendy’s with my car half in the street and a bunch of people texting in their fucking cars while leaving giant gaps in front of them.
Not nearly as unusual as you would think. We have a dozen or so of these a year at my company. If you get rear ended at a stop light and end up hitting the car in front of you, you will be determined to be at fault. Being able to see the pavement behind the wheels should be sufficient space.
True. Accidents are uncommon; rear-enders are the most common; and of those, the car getting hit is nearly always at a full stop as opposed to stopping/recently stopped a second ago.
The circumstances under which this would be true, and any %age of negligence assigned as a result, are so specific and rare as to make this statement effectively untrue. Rather than derail this thread through further discussion, feel free to open another if you wanna box. 
I play nice.
After reading about this topic in another thread, I now stop about a car length behind the car in front of me. Then I move up a few inches every so often, just to see if the person behind me also moves up those couple of inches. Passes the time at a light.
I disagree with this logic. When you stop for a light (or for any other reason), you are going to start applying your brake x distance before your stopping point. Then you stop at that point. Then you start. The distance from where you began to apply your brakes to the point where you resume normal speed again is going to be same no matter what arbitrary point you chose to come to rest.
The flaw in your reasoning is the idea of wasting distance by applying the brakes. You are going to “waste” distance by applying brakes no matter what, and for a skilled driver that distance will always be the same if the speed at braking start is the same and the stopping point is identified in advance. If you have to stop sooner because of the position of the car in front of you, then you will start braking earlier and still brake for x distance.
Nope, the car doing the hitting the one at the back of the chain is at fault.
And the extra space isnt really helping.
This is incorrect. A properly set loop sensor will detect the vehicle over it. If they’re set too high, they’ll detect trucks but not bikes/scooters/motorcycles. Set too low & the opposite occurs. They are most sensitive at the edge lines so a lighter vehicle, like a bike/scooter/motorcycle is served best by riding / stopping on the edge line.
The problem arises when they are paved over for some reason & not recut to the surface, which not only adds a bit of asphalt but also makes it harder to see exactly where the loop (& it’s edge lines) are. All you are doing by rocking back & forth is causing your car to drive over/off of the loop. IF you were stopped at the right place to begin with, your ‘rocking’ would be unnecessary. The same thing can be accomplished by stopping a bit far back & then slowly moving up, which will ensure that you’re over the loop at some point.
Pretty much every state follows the MUTCD & has language that allows you to legally proceed thru them like a stoplight if they don’t activate. In fact most states use identical language to what’s below (w/ obvious change for section #s).
I’m surprised no one’s said it yet; I leave more room on an uphill light to allow the vehicle in front of me to roll back a bit.
Sorry, PackerMan, the one starting the chain reaction accident is ultimately at fault for all vehicles damaged.
^ This.
I once missed two cycles because of some moron doing this. Even after I beeped, and motioned for them to move up, they wouldn’t budge. I finally went around them and did a U-turn. They might still be there today, waiting for the light that never changes…
This is one of those cases where knowing something about how technology works is a big help. People are just to happily ignorant. That guy probably thought the light was broken.
Yes, but a car length is fine, but as a driver who drive a stick, I appreciate your courtesy.
Yep.