How close do you drive to the car in front of you?

I remember the rule of thumb as one car length of space for every ten miles an hour. Now the various departments of motor vehicles have changed their tests/advice to seconds, as in how long it takes one to catch up to where the car in front was...

this is a little hard for me to wrap my brain around, so I looked in up on www.cartalk.com, and found this quote -

Quoting -

Take this one question quiz:

True or false?

The tailgating rule is to leave one car length for each 10 mph between your car and the car in front of you. (That is, if you're driving at 60 mph, leave 6 car lengths.)


Well, if you said "true", you're wrong. That old rule from Driver's Ed probably doesn't apply in your state. Nearly all states have changed the tailgating law to the two-second rule.

Here's how it works.

Pick a stationary object ahead of you on the roadside. When the car ahead passes that object, start counting off two seconds. (One cappuccino, two cappuccino.) If you got to the object before counting the full two seconds, you're tailgating.

By the way, this is more stringent than the car length rule. For example, at 60 mph, you'd go 176 feet in those two seconds. Using the car length rule, you'd only be about 100 feet away from the car in front of you.

So, do it right. You'll be glad that buffer is there when the transmission falls out of the car in front of you. And, if someone moves into that space--big deal. Slow down and make a little more room.

End of quote.



Well, that means that one length for every 10 miles per hour is too little space to leave..

There were other quotes on other sites about how many feet it takes a car to stop if going x miles per hour.. something like 400 feet if you're going 55 mph - but I didn't write it all down.

OMG - Nick, your mother, is she a elderly woman that looks like Shelly Winters? Then, we're related!

My mother was so dangerous on the road, she never looked at anything but the pavement directly in front of her.

As a teen, I'd be walking down a REALLY small side street, no one else around and see her coming my way.
I'd waving my arms, step partly into the road, she'd just roll by at a break neck speed of 15 mph, hunched over the wheel, staring straight ahead. Never saw me.

Once, as she rolled by, I slapped THE HOOD of the car with my hand. The HOOD, not the tail. She could have seen me if she averted her eyes.

Have you ever seen someone spin out doing 15 mph?

BTW everyone - the rule of thumb remains 3 or 4 alligators between cars.

I hate tailgaters, and always gesture with my hands to
the car behind me to leave room. If this doesn't help,
I'll turn on the lights! It looks like from behind that I'm hitting the brakes, and it usually works. Yet, if this doesn't work
either, I let them pass - too dangerous!

Needless to say, I keep a good distance to the car in front
of me.

IMO, how much room to leave is totally dependent on where you are driving. The 1st time I ever drove I-93 through downtown Boston it was at 95 MPH in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

After living in this area for a few years you find that if you leave more than about 2 feet between you and another car some idiot will try to cut in. (usually without any warning at all)

And people wonder why I despise driving so much. Sheesh! I much preferred Oklahoma where you could leave a few hundred feet between cars and there weren't any problems at all.

I agree, Fishin...

Los Angeles Freeway driving takes a certain combo of savoir faire and tight control - there are so many elements to know re which lane to be in for where you want to go, and driving is fast and close-to.

When I drive south from the northern part of California I have some time to reacclimate; bumper avidity increases markedly once I get down around Santa Rosa in Sonoma County.
By the time I pull in a driveway in Los Angeles I'm cool with it again. But... it is all stupid as weight of the auto or truck, speed, and distance still related the same old way.

That's interesting, Osso. I love the CLICK & CLACK brothers but I was thinking the two-second rule would be less stringent.

I know how to drive fast and my car could probably beat more that 95% of the cars on the road, but I am no longer in a hurry when I drive. I think of my way of driving as driving with dignity... also, so as not to get any more tickets or god-forbid, into an accident. I do slow down -- I'm that irritating person who goes no more than 7 miles over the speed limit. If someone starts tail-gating me, I slow down even more.I move politely out of the way if I can. And if I smile at you when you pass me after tailgating me, just remember, I am also showing my teeth.

I drive on the shoulder. There's hardly ever anyone there.

ah, it was gustav who mowed me down while i was walking on the shoulder - and he didn't even honk. hbg

hbg, is that how you went from a steer to a hamburger?

A city block between me and the cars in front and behind me are good. If I get tailgated (ie if it's half a city block) then I find that pointing a gun at the offending driver works very well.

Speed varies...

depends on the car - I was slowest when I had a vw bus: its center of gravity was on the roof...

I average in the eighties on some lengths of highway 101 through California, occasionally catching myself higher and backing off, but am slower than some when going around curves in the forest, though I'm usually not the slowest. I try not to ever be the fastest but in relatively unpopulated regions one can be flying solo.

In heavy traffic I leave plenty of room, following the car length thing as best I can, and yes, people cut in. Fine. I prefer that to a collision where I am apt to be at fault by definition, not to mention hurting my car, hurting myself/others.

I have been fortunate re accidents/tickets (shhhhhh!)
... was in one as a passenger as a teen that gave me a clue how fast stuff happens, and in another that wasn't my fault about fifteen years ago, also quick, a spinnerama.

Plus there's my damn eyes... I compensate for somewhat impaired peripheral vision with conscious head turning/scanning to get my overview in view.. I don't need to be creeping up someone's tailpipe.

So now you're all askairt, me going eighty..
Well, only when safe..

Truth be told, I'm gearing up for a big drive at the wrong time of year soon. It wouldn't hurt me to review the DMV handout. Last time I looked it had multiplied in length of pages on How To Drive.

gus gave me a bum steer, and here i am . hbg

If you're in the left lane on the freeway, which is also known as the PASSING LANE, there's nobody in front of you, or at least for a good distance, and someone is "riding your ass," it means, "get the fu*k out of the passing lane, you moron."

Now we have that out of the way, I ride at a far enough distance where I could stop in time if they jammed their brakes. Tailgaiting is moronic, by the way.

You know how some people hit their brakes to get someone off their ass? What's even better is when you drive a stick. Downshift 2 gears at once pretty hard, they'll get right the hell off you.

Re: How close do you drive to the car in front of you?


Say, aren't you the lady that had a co-worker wandering around your office looking for a misplaced giraffe? Next time you're in the area, we could do lunch, ya know?

I never had a problem with tailgateing in Oklahoma - except when I'd tossed out the last brick on a prior tailgater.

I've been in 3 cars driven by berserk tailgaters. One I felt safe with, and I turned out to be right, I looked him up on line after 30 years and he's still kicking... a ride after a work party to continue the conversation (not exactly kidding) at a million mph in a porsche of that year or so. I just gave up, hoped to live, and enjoyed it.


Another was a wannabe fella with a, sorry dys, red porsche, who clipped cliffs going around LA area mountains and rode tail, and in his case I doubted sanity.

Another was a guy with a state van, and he was really outta line, on highway 5. I almost walked, but my paintings were in the van.

I hate it when people ride my bumber. I don't know how many car lengths I drive behind the person in front of me, but it's enough for other people to be constantly getting in between me and them.

I have taped the breaks, I have just slowed waaaaayyy doooowwwn. Heehee. I try not to because it gets me stressed and gets the driver behind me stressed. My uncle died of a coronary after a bout of bad road rage.

I've found that the best way to reduce stress while driving is to ignore everything happening around me.

I tried this once with a 250 pound steroid-abuser on my ass. He managed to drive up beside me and threatened to kill me and my girlfriend. Then he chased us around the highway for a while before I lost him.

Smog - I try - LORD - I try. But, I live in the Boston area where we have a certain reputation. I used to think that Somerville was the worst place to drive. Now I name Medford THE WORST! It's like a big parking lot to all who live there. They cut through 10-car parking lots at 30 MPH to avoid redlights. They pull directly into the road to wait to take a left, no attempt at a stop at the stop sign. They take right on reds even where it's clearly not legal. They can't seem to work rotaries remotely right. The pedestrians are just as bad.