It's not about not being fast enough, it's about a driver who is using his vehicle as part of his rage. You didn't think "guns keep us safer" was a valid claim, did you?
@BayView: you are taking the concept of owning one's space too literally for the sake of your argument. You are arguing something different (a political principle of 'ownership') while other people are arguing what is obviously an unspoken rule about how close is OK to drive behind a person.
I was replying to a post. No one started a gun debate. Are you really that sensitive to other people expressing opinions you don't like?
I agree that there's an unspoken rule. Well, no, actually, I guess I don't... I think the rule is spoken, right? Or at least written? Most jurisdictions have rules about safe driving; tailgating is reckless driving and against the law. This is all just quibbling, obviously - when there's a strong, clear, written, legally enforced rule saying that people have to drive at a safe distance behind others, I guess it doesn't really matter whether there's also another, more nebulous rule of courtesy, unrelated to safety but that just happens to share the exact boundaries as the rule that is based on safety...
A bad habit of mine is frequently glancing in the rearview mirror when I'm being tailgated. So now I make effort not to, and often slow down to on-the-dot speed limit. @jannert: how would testifying that your friend wasn't tailgating actually help her? I think the accident's occurrence would be pretty hard evidence, unless she was planning to say that the other driver backed into her?
I'm pretty sure that in most jurisdictions (certainly here), when one car rams into the rear of another, the rammer (the car behind) is always considered 'at fault' because the assumption is that he/she didn't leave enough space for the sake of safety. One problem is that, depending on traffic, if you leave the standard 'one car length for every ten miles per hour' space as taught in driver's ed, and you're doing seventy, you'll soon have six or even seven cars slip in between you and the original followee.
Oh, I can't recall all the ins and outs ...it was back in the mid 1970s ...but she wanted me to say that she hadn't been tailgating, and that the guy up front had done something wrong instead. Of course that wouldn't have held water ...it doesn't matter why he'd stopped, she shouldn't have plowed into him. I think maybe she wanted me to say his brake lights weren't working or something like that. Anyway, they interviewed us both together, and I wouldn't stick to her script ...and she was really mad at me.
Honestly, in a lot of areas, I wouldn't doubt people have guns, or at the very least some kind of aggression when they're behind the wheel. It's why I don't flip off rude drivers even when I really, really want to - it's not worth getting followed around.
I'm from the UK, so I don't understand the concept of everyone having a gun and that being a "normal" thing, although I do know that it is generally the norm and nothing surprising in the US. I agree with you though - gun or no gun, it's not worth pissing off drivers with rage problems. They could cause quite a bit of damage just with their car or at least give you a horrific fright.
Do you really wanna go there? 'Cause I have a bunch of statistics that indicate that yes, guns do help keep people/areas comparatively safer... that is, if we're going to start discussing such baseless claims. Or should we stick to discussing tailgating? How else do debates start except by someone posting their opinion first? In that light, yes, posting an opinion like that actually does equal starting a debate because why should only you be allowed to voice your opinion about that off-topic issue? If you reserve that right, it means Stevesh, I, and others should be allowed to do the same since nobody here has special privileges, right? I know it'd be nice if only I was allowed to voice my opinions about gun laws (because I'm the sole purveyor of the Truth ), but that's not how this forum works. I'm pretty sure it's no surprise to anyone here (this goes for you too, @Mckk ) that if you post provocative off-topic statements, there's a good chance it'll turn into a debate and prompt others to post their equally acceptable opinions as well since that's their prerogative. I do think it's best, however, that we don't start such an OT debate here since there are plenty of gun-related threads in the Debate Room. Anyway, going back to tailgating: I am... an occasional tailgater, I guess, if I understand the term correctly: I don't do it with mopeds, scooters, or moped cars; they can't go faster than what, 50kmh/31mph or some such, so I leave them alone, they're already going as fast as they can, and they practically always give way to cars to pass them, some of the kids even pull over to let cars pass; no problem there. Same with construction/maintenance vehicles; they give way to cars, no issue there. I don't get annoyed, but I do consider it endangering of traffic, inconsiderate, and a dick move when a regular vehicle, in daylight or a well-lit area, in good weather, during a long straight (i.e. no murder curves or anything), on a non-slippery road, drive well under the speed limit, I mean at least 5-10 under, sometimes as much as 20, and I'm talking about areas where the speed limit is like 40-80kmh/25-50mph, i.e. no dizzying speeds. So, I inch a bit closer, but stay far enough that I can come to a full stop without a crash (one douche did a surprise stop once, apparently pissed off at me, but of course I didn't hit his car). I do that a few times and then just bide my time until I can pass them... and that's usually when they really put the pedal to the metal, as if they're trying to force people to drive behind their royal asses and slower than the speed limit at that. What, didn't get enough attention as a kid so now you have to get your kicks messing up traffic and creating traffic jams wherever you go? Point being, if you're doing it for some twisted kicks or just to be an asshole... just don't. If you're such a shitty driver that you don't dare drive according to the speed limit even in perfect conditions and slow speeds... don't drive! Go take more lessons first, then start driving in traffic again so you don't create needless dangerous situations for people who actually have a schedule to keep and would like to drive according to speed limits, avoid traffic jams etc. Every time you force multiple cars to pass your incompetent ass, you expose them and the drivers coming from the opposite direction to needless accidents, causing unnecessary risks for others just because you have to drive even though you can't or you suck at it so hard, you're a danger to others and yourself. Now, if you're having something like a lash under your contact lens, a panic attack, leg cramp, heart attack, or whatever, pull over (and possibly call an ambulance if necessary), but don't keep driving except very slowly. Sometimes it's just someone who hasn't notied we've gone from 40kmh to 60kmh, so a quick "tailgate," they realize to pay attention to the speed limit, notice it's higher, and they start driving accordingly; problem solved. Usually it seems to be a case of the driver not knowing the speed limit or doing something idiotic like talking into a cellphone without a handsfree/applying make-up/texting, or plain assholitis (the people who won't let you pass or speed up as soon as you try to pass them), but a few visits closer at least let's them know I know there's a problem with their driving (that's during the day or summer evenings; in the darkness of winter months, it's enough to flash the long beams a few times). If only driver's licenses weren't handed out so damn easily, we'd weed out many incredibly crappy and, most of all, downright dangerous drivers. Driving too fast causes accidents, but so does driving too slowly. There's a reason why it's a good idea to follow speed limits except in sharp bends, extreme weather etc. which is when just about everyone slows down anyway. And no, I'm no pro rally driver, but I wouldn't get behind the wheel if I couldn't keep up with the traffic/speed limits, parallel park without taking half an hour or bumping into the two other parked cars and that way slow down passing traffic/force them to stop or move on the opposite lane, know when and how to let people pass me (which I thought was common sense, but obviously it's not), how to join a freeway without panicking/causing dangerous situations etc. I treat cars and driving like guns and shooting; everything I do, I do carefully and as well as I can, and if I'm lacking in some area, I take classes/ask for instruction before I try it out on the road/in a competition so I don't endanger myself, my loved ones, and others. I think their and my safety is worth the extra effort. So, does that count as tailgating or does it count only when you get too close to avoid a collision if the person before you hits the brakes?
Great post, but how often does your tailgating result in the car ahead speeding up? If it's rarely or never, then it seems you're adding a little possible danger to the situation for no reasonable result. When I say 'tailgating', BTW, I'm talking about less than a car length between vehicles. I regularly travel a six-mile stretch of two-lane road between my town and the next. The speed limit is 55, which is my usual speed. More often then not, some jackass plants himself on my rear bumper until we reach the next town, despite the fact that the expressway is forty feet to our right, with exits at both towns. I can tell you such behavior never causes me to increase my speed, and usually earns said jackass the middle finger. People who drive slowly and then speed up when you try to pass, on the other hand, should lose their licenses, if any.
If I get behind someone going slower than conditions allow, I will move up closer at first, maybe give a quick tap on the horn. If they don't speed up, I back off until the coast is clear to pass. I'm not going to try to bully them into going faster, because most of the time it won't work anyway. Most highways have a minimum speed limit and if they're going at least that, I really have no legitimate complaint (since the highway department has decided what's the lowest safe speed). Frankly, if people would allow themselves more time to get where they're going, they could actually learn to enjoy those slower traffic times instead of going ballistic. But people seem to think they can plan so poorly (or plan so precisely) that others are just not allowed to interfere with the timetable.
Wow. This post not only makes me think you're a dangerous driver, but it makes me worry about your interest in guns, as well. Can you explain how slow drivers cause accidents? I mean, independently of some jackass doing something stupid (passing unsafely, tailgating, flicking high beams) to try to get past? The slow driving itself, not a stupid response to slow driving, is dangerous? I think it's important for everyone on the road to drive at the speed they think is safe. If a person is elderly, or just knows they don't have good reflexes, they should absolutely drive more slowly. Oh, that's right, you think everyone who isn't a great driver should just get off the road. Because, I guess, your right to get where you want to go at the speed you like is more important than their right to get where they want to go at all. They should just stay home. I usually drive pretty fast (20km over the limit is the standard 'real' limit, here, so that's what I drive). But when I encounter someone driving more slowly than me, I remember the simple advice: they may know something I don't. Maybe they can see a kid playing on the side of the road ahead, and I can't see it because my vision is blocked by their car. Maybe they saw a herd of deer in this area half an hour earlier and are taking it slow to avoid a collision. Maybe they heard on the radio that there's trouble up ahead. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I'm not saying I never pass them. But I give them the benefit of the doubt, wait a while to see what's up, and then, when I'm able to pass safely and respectfully, that's what I do. Tailgating? Flashing lights (temporarily blinding a driver? that seems like a good way to make them go faster?)? No. What's so important about where you're going that you can't take the time to be courteous to others on the road?
In one sense, yes. Despite the plethora of public service announcements, speed doesn't kill. Speed differential kills. If all traffic is moving at ten miles per hour over the limit, that stretch is much safer than if half are driving at the limit and half at ten over, for obvious reasons. I agree with you about the possibility that the car ahead is aware of a danger you may not be. I also agree that each of us has the 'right' to drive as slowly as we want to. Seems easy enough to stay a few car lengths back until an opportunity to pass comes up. p.s. Please try not to inject stuff like your off-topic comment on @T.Trian's interest in guns. Another thread I was having a good time in was just banished to the Debate Room (though I'm hard-pressed to see how treating people equally under the law, as the Constitution requires, is a subject for 'debate'), and I've banned myself from that forum.
Then what I meant by tailgating isn't really tailgating; the faster we go, the bigger of a minimum safety distance I maintain even when doing what I called tailgating above, i.e. getting a bit closer than I'd usually go but staying far enough to be able to stop abruptly without hitting the car in front of mine. As for the success rate, the car ahead of me speeds up to normal speed about half or 2/3 of the time. I'd estimate that 6-7 out of 10 speed up when I start passing them, about 1/10 or a bit fewer to the point that I can't pass them. Some of this might be cultural: that's how it is here in Finland whereas in Western and Eastern Europe, they almost never seem to speed up when I pass someone and they rarely drive slower than the speed limit (except in bad weather, dangerous roads, pitch black darkness etc). Not sure what kind of driving culture exists Stateside, but here it's pretty rare to have someone drive closer than a car's length except in traffic jams and rush hour traffic in city centers. When someone does, I let them pass. If they don't (which has happened only a couple of times), if there's nobody else around, I keep slowing down until they do pass or actually pull over with me, but that has never happened. Wow yourself; ain't that a model example of jumping to wild conclusions based on absolutely nothing. Honestly, I pray you're not a judge. Could you please point out the part where I specified I promote passing others unsafely? I can't find that part in my post, so... where is it? Thanks in advance. Anyway, how is slow driving dangerous, you ask? Have you driven in traffic, well, ever? Okay, I'll try to give some idea of the realities of driving where I live: Verly slow drivers = sooner or later a long line of cars is crawling behind them. Sooner or later someone in that line will try passing (I know, I know, in the perfect utopia nobody would ever be in a hurry, we'd all live in perfect harmony, be happy all the time etc. but at least my home country isn't quite like that, maybe yours is, and nobody ever passes anyone driving well below the limit?). Point being, the further down the line they are, the more dangerous it is for everyone, especially since most roads here consist of two lanes, one per direction, i.e. passing means a visit to the opposite traffic's lane. I can't control those other drivers behind me if e.g. I drive behind the slow driver, so anyone else behind me may try passing me and the slow asshole. That, of course, needlessly exposes me and everyone else on that road to completely unnecessary danger. Now, if you're such a bad driver that you can't drive according to speed limits even on straight, safe roads in good weather... damn straight you shouldn't drive! Why? Because... Well, riddle me this: why can't (the passive) you drive at normal speeds? Slow reaction time? Poor driving skills? Bad eye sight? Poor hearing? Some other impairing things? Then hell no, you shouldn't drive! All those things make you a dangerous driver, and still getting behind the wheel is fucking selfish, irresponsible, and downright stupid. You know, I thought it was self-evident: people who can't drive safely, shouldn't drive. Take the bus, a taxi, ask a friend for a lift, buy a bike, or learn to fucking drive, but don't get behind the wheel if you don't know how to drive because... surprise: driving safely is a skill, acquiring skill takes practice, and yes, that skill will rust just like any other if you don't practice enough. So either practice enough to become good enough or if you won't or can't, yes, get the hell off the road. I mean, you're in control of a (relatively) fast-moving ton of metal, so of course you need quick reflexes and a reasonable skill level to operate that machine safely and responsibly. That's how it works in shooting too (since you decided to drag my wholly off-topic interest in firearms into this for whatever reason): if you can't handle your firearm safely, you're kicked off the competition. no matter if you drove 500km to the tournament and it's the first day of a weekend event: one mistake and you're out. Why are the judges so anal about nobody breaking even one safety rule? Because guns are dangerous and downright lethal in incompetent hands. Just like cars. FTFY. Actually, not all elderly people suck at driving, but yes, those whose vision, reflexes, hearing etc. have deteriorated to the point that they can't drive normally i.e. safely, it's time to do everyone a favor and stop driving before their bad reflexes fail them and they run over a kid speeding across the road on a bike. Is their right to drive everywhere more important than that kid's life? Think of the children! No, seriously, think about that for a moment if it doesn't make sense right away. Hey, that's what I do too! From the get-go I talked about situations with good visibility, an unobstructed road, good lighting and weather etc. yet they drive 5-20 under the limit. Reread my post if you missed all that stuff. Maybe the difference between your and my driving habits is that I'd rather inch a bit closer a few times (without violating the safety distance) before I move on the opposite traffic's lane to pass the car in front f me to give them a chance to nottice they're going too slow; it's only when they still don't speed up that I pass them... IF I can do so safely. If not, yes, I'm stuck behind that particular model citizen and won't make further attempts unless it's an emergency (which it could be; how would the slow driver know I don't have an emergency, like a dying family member I'm trying to drive to the nearby hospital when an ambulance wasn't available?). Folks have flashed lights at me more than once from behind and the opposite direction (although not because of speed; once at night to notify me of a broken tail light, once during the day because my dad had turned off the car's lights which normally come on automatically, and once a car coming from the opposite direction flashed its long beams to notify me of a speed meter/camera up ahead), but I was never blinded, not once, so if you are temporarily blinded by someone flashing their car's lights at you from either direction, please, go get your eyes checked, there could be something wrong with them because that (temporary blindness) is not supposed to happen. Do you honestly think car manufacturers put lights in their vehicles that temporarily blind other drivers? Honestly? You really think they don't test them before releasing a new model into traffic? Yeah, long beams are bright, xenon lights and all, they're supposed to be, but they don't blind me because, frankly, I don't stare at them; you're not supposed to either btw. And, again, does my description qualify as tailgating? Not if we go with @stevesh's definition, so maybe I don't tailgate, but it's similar anyway even if I don't get quite that close, and, again, yes, around here it does work more often than not. I've never needed to resort to the horn and only once I've flashed my lights (from behind). Unsurprisingly, the driver ahead did not go blind and drive into the tree ahead, but lifted his hand (open, no international signals) to acknowledge, and sped up to the speed limit (he hadn't noticed we'd gone from a 40kmh area to a 60kmh). That didn't feel horribly dangerous to me, but maybe it was, I dunno... Well, that really depends, doesn't it? I've been verging on a seizure caused by ill-fitting medication on the front seat while a friend was driving me to the ER, so yes, we were in a hurry, and no, I wouldn't have appreciated some selfish prick sight-seeing 20 below the limit before us just because it's their fucking right. Tell me, how do the slow drivers know the car behind them isn't transporting a woman in labor, a worker bleeding dry from an accident, a child unconscious from dangerously high fever... or a myriad other valid reasons to be in as much of a hurry to at least wish some asshole wouldn't hog the road driving 20 under the limit without letting anyone pass? And no, I'm still not promoting speeding, only driving according to speed limits when it's safe to do so.
Yeah, by asking others, who keep bringing it up, not to do so. That's reasonable. @stevesh is also right about the speed differential being the bigger danger, to return to the actual topic at hand. ETA: tag, just because.
Oh, you must have missed this part, I'll bolden it for you. If you're going to get your passive aggressive digs in you don't get to complain about other peoples passive aggressive digs.
There is an astonishing amount of sanctimonious crap in this thread. I have just started driving in NZ, and the rule here on motorways seems to be that the person in front of you will pull manoeuvres without checking their rear-view mirror first; so you basically just adopt the brace position as you drive.
It reminds me of a speech class in High School. We were asked to introduce ourselves an speak about our personality. At least 4 people gave the same speech, where they talked about what easy going guys they were. Except when it came to driving. There the teenagers who had been driving for 3 years (at most) calmly boasted about their road rage toward those that "can't drive".
