Keep A Safe Distance

I have concluded that tailgating must be the normal way to drive from what I have observed on the road for many years now. Well this is not the normal way to drive and we Need To Stop! You should drive at least 3 seconds behind the vehicle in front of you. If you're not sure what this means next time you are on the road following a vehicle visually mark a stationary object that the vehicle in front of you passes and begin to count, one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three. If you reach this mark before you get to one-thousand-three you are too close.

There is more than one action involved in stopping a vehicle and several elements to consider, it's not just a matter of pressing your brake pedal. First; there is the speed at which you are travelling, Second; the weight of the vehicle you are driving, Third; the road conditions that you are driving in, Fourth; recognizing a need to stop, Fifth; your reaction time to that need to stop by moving your foot from the accelerator pedal to the brake pedal, Sixth; applying pressure to your brake pedal and waiting for the braking process and mechanics of your vehicle to take place. If you are not taking these factors into account and you're tailgating and suddenly you have to slam on your brakes sit back grip the steering wheel and hope you don't run into the back of the vehicle in front of you. It becomes a helpless feeling when you are standing on your brake pedal pushing it through the floor board and you still haven't stopped huh?

I know some people think that they can cheat by covering their brake pedal with their foot when they get too close to a vehicle in front of them but why do this, why tailgate in the first place? We probably tailgate because we encounter the driver that gets in the passing lane going slow where this action is either clueless or deliberate. We try to push them along and force them into the slow lane. Other reasons we tailgate is to close the gap between us and the vehicle in front of us to prevent what I call the "opportunist" driver taking advantage of a spot to jump in front of you or because we are just not paying attention for whatever reason. I notice that cell phones are one of the biggest culprits of tailgating (read my post "Get Off The @#$% Cell Phone). Some people just don't realize how dangerous this is and if you do run into the back of someone it will be your fault period because you should not have been tailgating.