A driver disconnected from their surroundings is the last one you want to tailgate. They are the most likely to do the unpredictable. And no matter how aware you are you can’t stop fast enough to avoid hitting someone if you are traveling half a car length behind them at 65 mph.
(the half a car length was how close cainxinth admits to getting behind other drivers to get them to move.)
Man, this thread contentious. I’ll this is the last thing I’ll say on the subject.
More cars handle high speeds better and more people drive at high speed, which is why speed limits in my state were raised to 65 a few years ago. For many drivers 65 still isn’t cutting it and we drive 75 and 80.
Like it or not this means anyone that wants to drive the speed limit is relegated to the right lane on a two-lane highway. If you don’t care about anyone but yourself and want to block traffic by taking a Sunday stroll in the left lane, I will only tolerate you for so long. I won’t put you in any danger, I won’t impose myself, heck I’ll show you more courtesy than your showing me, but I won’t follow your fool ass for twenty minutes. If I can’t pass on the right, I’ll flash the lights, tap the horn, and finally move close enough for you to realize I’m trying to get by, and would you please give way to faster traffic.
No disagreement that passing on the left is preferred. I was simply refuting those who claim that passing on the right is ILLEGAL. Passing on the left is preferred, but passing on the right (on a multi-lane freeway) is TOTALLY LEGAL. So the 'gaters who come up on a car in the leftmost lane, when there is reasonable room to pass it on the right, but don’t do so because they believe that they are in the right to force to other car to move over because it would be ILLEGAL for them to pass on the right are just wrong. If the car in front doesn’t move over, you are totally legally clear to just go around him on the right, right?
Why am I in that lane? Because I’m keeping up with the prevailing traffic in that lane, which is pretty high volume, as is the traffic in all the other lanes. I am most certainly NOT “slower traffic”, I’m keeping pace with the car in front of me, which is keeping pace with the car in front of him, which is keeping pace with the car in front of him, on and on as far as the eye can see. So you tell me: Why are you tailgating me? You somehow expect that every single car in the left lane should move out of your way? What do you think that would do to traffic, if you caused this “bubble” of cars ahead of you to all move into the next lane to the right, all the way down the freeway?
I myself tend to drive faster than typical. In a high volume situation such as described above, I’d surely LIKE to be driving faster, but I’m intelligent enough to realize that the traffic is moving the way it’s moving, and that tailgating the guy in front of my ain’t gonna buy me anything, and is just damned dangerous.
In lower volume situations, I tend to drive in the left-most lane because I’m going faster than the other cars on the road. But you know what? If I come up on a slower moving car in the left lane, I MOVE TO THE RIGHT, go around him, and continue on my way!
Many years ago, I read an article about how to drive fast. You know what the number one rule was? If YOU want to drive fast, your first responsibility is to do so in a way that does not disturb any other drivers on the road. Any time you cause another driver to deviate from the path or speed that he would have taken had you not been there, you have FAILED in your responsibility, and you are a bad driver.
I take that to heart. If I choose to speed, and I come up on a slower car in the left lane, I can certainly grumble and curse to myself about how stupid he is and how he doesn’t belong there and the idiot ought to move over. But I nevertheless don’t disturb him, I just go around and go on my way.
So you will not admit that you are putting them in danger by tailgating at half a car length? And you think someone else is the fool?
If (“But mom, everyone does it!” …) is true and out of thousands of times nobody gets hurt - it is “moronic” to suggest that you WILL get hurt.
The argument that “people drive close to each other at high speed in rush hour every morning” means nothing. People do stupid and dangerous things all the time, and that’s supposed to prove that they’re safe? is wrong. It does mean something, it just proves that it is NOT the incredibly dangerous thing that you and other are trying to make it out as.
Out of the 1000’s of cars on rt. 95 between Baltimore and Washington that I see almost every day, I rarely see an accident caused by following to close. If there is one of this type it is at LOW speed - 0 to 15 mph in bumper to bumper traffic. Actually, I rarely see an accident at speed.
Now on the 495 beltway, I see unaware drivers run into others when changing lanes all the time.
NOTE: I have said in other posts that it is foolish to tailgate and I am not endorsing assinine behavior. Just making the realization that many that feel like that there are too many assholes out there tailgaiting are often the SOURCE of the start of an aggressive incident and the type that do not possess the requisite skills to be behind the wheel in the first place.
Cainxinth. Your lame justifications are the reason why driving is a priveledge. You endanger people’s lives simply because you are inconvenienced. That is selfish bordering on sociopathic.
B&I Your excuses were particularyl lame, and mostly answered by In Conceivable. Your tailgating is dangerous adn the excuse of ‘waking them up’ is atrocious. You are gambling with lives here,just like waving a loading gun. A loaded gun will get folk’s attention too, and you could do it a hundred times before something when wrong.
Then people die. They die for your impatience and selfishness.
arrg… alright this is the last thing I’ll say.
Tailgating half a car length for five seconds is not unsafe!!! For crying out loud you can’t drive on any highway between 6 and 8 am without doing it.
You are off your bloody rocker. Driving over the speed limit and all this things that go with it are not sociopathic. Jesus, man I would love to see how some of you people drive.
How come I and many others manage to do it every day then? I am sorry that the last thing you are going to say is so stupid.
Please… I can hear the traffic copter now:
Bumper to bumper all the way to the tunnel, except for a yellow gremlin with “INCONCVBL” plates that has two car lengths between him and all other cars at all times.
“Tailgating responsibly” is an oxymoron. It’s like saying that you can play Russian Roulette responsibly.
There seems to be this recurring rationalization of tailgating that, “I do it all the time, and I’m careful and attentive and have my foot hovering over the brake pedal, and nothing bad has ever happened”, therefore it’s safe and responsible.
Tailgating is very much like playing Russian Roulette, except that the odds are much better. But just because the odds of causing an accident while tailgating are better than the odds of getting shot while playing Russian Roulette, doesn’t make tailgating “safe” or “responsible.”
It’s dangerous, and just because people do it and survive doesn’t make it safe.
Considering I don’t drive, seeing how I drive would be interesting. I ride a bike.
I don’t care how fast you go. I care what your reaction is to someone who isn’t going fast enough for your personal tastes is. Speed all you want, don’t kill another person because they inconvenience your already lawbreaking activity.
And quite frankly, if lame-ass impatient psychonuts like you is going to blow a gasket over someone going only 10-15 mph to the point where you endanger their lives and then make lame justifications for such a willful disregard for human lives I seriously worry about what you will do if you have to be behind me for 3.4 seconds as I manuever around a washed out part of the bike lane. There’s a trickle down effect here, actually, by the time it reaches me it’ll be more like an avalanche.
I am a she.
1/2 a car is dangerous, I would not do it.
Also,
As I have already said, when traffic does not permit a higher speed I will not blink horn or close in to wake-up the other driver.
However,
I see lots of traffic problems caused by just a few dumbasses. There may be lots of traffic on a 2/3 mile stretch of 8 lane divided highway (4 lanes each way) because there is just one ass in the number 1 lane that sets up a rolling road block with cars in the right lanes. Result, 200 cars bunched up where there needs not be such a dangerous bunched up situation. Finally break free of said dumbass and find some nice open, and safer, highway.
Trying my best to show that everything is not absolute!
Sorry ** In Conceivable**, anyway I can see we’re at an impasse here, so I’ll bow out. Enjoy the debate folks.
I drive modified vehicles, hi-performance everything - even the brakes in my Explorer are not stock. DO NOT presume that I am endangering you are anybody else. With my foot hovering over the brake in my vehicles I will stop faster than anything that I have gotten close to - you just make sure you are not following me so close that you will hit me if I have to stop/slow.
BTW Mr. Miskatonic would you care to elaborate on what was lame - try to support your argument
Also, when does something become dangerous?
you say 100 times before an accident happens - OK, what about 1000 times before an accident happens.
Usually at those odds there are modderating variables that can better explain the accident as a chance happening that would have occured regardless of the “other driver”
Its okay cainxinth. I hope that we meet in another thread where we can be friends.
You are not taking into account reaction time. You aren’t going to step on your “super” brakes at the exact same second the driver you are tailgating does. Besides, what if they have hi-performance breaks too? (what ever that means)
Just out of curiousity:
Do your brakes really stop faster because they are not stock? What does that mean anyway? How much faster do they stop?
By this reasoning then, you will vote to REMOVE the “Hit from Behind” as an indication of fault in accidents since it is not dangerous?
This reasoning (?) means that in other areas that you don’t really care much but but that I do you will allow me to use the same argument to get to behave the way I want? LOL way cool …
Everything is dangerous and I am all for personal responsibility. I would much rather have it that way. Do you? I have a big ole truck, you are okay with me up your ass on the freeway? Or any little ole place I don’t think you are going fast enough to suit me? Really?
And to whoever said there is NO excuse to drive slower than the speed limit. Well, come on down. I’ll buy the gas to get here. And then you will drive the posted speed limits on the roads and corners, sight unseen, that I chose? Correct? Bwhahahahah
Folks, all life is risk management and what our perceptions of the magnitude of the risk judged by our knowledge and experience determine what we asses the risk as. If you have not been hurt yet, you see no risk?. You want me to bet my life on your criteria? I don’t think so.
So tailgate away. Just be sure that when it goes wrong, that the fact that you or someone you care about dies, does not keep you from standing up and saying that the person who was tailgating and scared your daughter into a fatal crash is not at fault and the you will not let them be charged with any crime nor will you accept any insurance money because the person tailgating for those 3 seconds was not doing anything wrong… Bwhahaha yeah right…