Common mistakes made by drivers- Auto Safety – Safe following distance

Safe Studies show that most drivers keep only a distance of one or two seconds behind the vehicle in front of them. Why this distance? Studies have shown:

1. Many claim that they were taught the two second rule while learning how to drive.

What many forget to consider is that two second rule was derived by testing the stopping g distance and reaction time of the driver in the ideal situation. The ideal situations mostly do not exist. Given two seconds or less, the driver finds time to analyze the situation further ahead or behind him, leaving him no time or ability to react if something suddenly happens to the vehicle that is directly in front of him. This causes unnecessary danger for any passenger and additional wear and tear on the vehicle caused by having to break or react suddenly.

2. “But leaving more distance in front of me, gives other drivers the chance to cut in and I will always be in the back.”

Believe it or not, this reasoning is based more on emotions vs. logic. The honesty of it all is when a situation like this happens; another vehicle is usually leaving the lane you are currently in further up in front. There is always balance. As much as we would like to believe situations such as these have a massive effect on our schedule, it is not so. Here is a typical scenario:
Assuming that driver that cuts in maintains distance of two seconds, which means it added two seconds to our schedule. If this type of situation occurred forty times daily, it would only add eighty seconds to our day worth and this is with assumption that none of the vehicles leave your lane, however usually most will.

So now I’m sure you are asking, “What is the correct following distance”? The answer is more than four seconds. This is how it must be measured: every time a car in front of you passes an object such as traffic light or a telephone pole, count one thousand one, one thousand two and so on. By the time you are passing the same object you should be counting one thousand four. When the weather conditions are poor, this distance must go even higher. Maintaining this distance will minimize the risk for you and your loved ones.