5 ms·

It's not the counting that's hard. it's that others will merge in front of you constantly.

by Xelbair 5y ago

rileymat2 5y ago
Also as you adjust to increase the gap in front of you, the person behind starts tailgating, if they were not already.
- projektfu 5y ago
  In my experience, tailgaters are never satisfied by the speed of the car in front of them. The only good play is to leave enough space in front to stop without getting rear-ended. In Atlanta, people will tailgate in spite of a wide open lane to the left and the driver in front going the speed of the road. I’m not going to tailgate the person in front of me just because the person behind me is tailgating.
  - Verdex 5y ago
    Yeah, tailgating the person in front of me because the person behind me is tailgating has always felt like a: "well, now I have two problems" kind of situation.
  - tremon 5y ago
    If someone is tailgating me, I purposefully slow down, to 10-15% below the speed limit. If someone is determined to crash into my car, I prefer them to do so at as low a speed as I can get.
cameronh90 5y ago
This does happen, but I find it doesn't result in me getting to my destination any slower. If someone merges close in front of me, I reduce my speed by 5 mph or so for as long as I need, probably usually around 10-20 seconds, until there's an adequate gap again. Often someone will pull into that gap within a few mins, and I do the same thing. Overall it reduces my average speed by an imperceptible amount. It might add up to a couple minutes over a several hour journey, but I take that as worth it for being less likely to rear end someone. Additionally, it really only happens in dense traffic when in the outside lane to exit the highway. When you're in the fastest moving lane and keeping up with traffic, few drivers are going to over/undertake you just to get into the gap. More typically they'll overtake the car in front of you too so it's not a problem. Admittedly most of my driving is in UK and NW Europe rather than the US. US drivers seem a lot more suicidal and US highways tend to be less predictable by design.

It's not the counting that's hard. it's that others will merge in front of you constantly.

rileymat2 5y ago

Also as you adjust to increase the gap in front of you, the person behind starts tailgating, if they were not already.

projektfu 5y ago
In my experience, tailgaters are never satisfied by the speed of the car in front of them. The only good play is to leave enough space in front to stop without getting rear-ended. In Atlanta, people will tailgate in spite of a wide open lane to the left and the driver in front going the speed of the road. I’m not going to tailgate the person in front of me just because the person behind me is tailgating.
- Verdex 5y ago
  Yeah, tailgating the person in front of me because the person behind me is tailgating has always felt like a: "well, now I have two problems" kind of situation.
- tremon 5y ago
  If someone is tailgating me, I purposefully slow down, to 10-15% below the speed limit. If someone is determined to crash into my car, I prefer them to do so at as low a speed as I can get.

cameronh90 5y ago

This does happen, but I find it doesn't result in me getting to my destination any slower. If someone merges close in front of me, I reduce my speed by 5 mph or so for as long as I need, probably usually around 10-20 seconds, until there's an adequate gap again. Often someone will pull into that gap within a few mins, and I do the same thing. Overall it reduces my average speed by an imperceptible amount. It might add up to a couple minutes over a several hour journey, but I take that as worth it for being less likely to rear end someone. Additionally, it really only happens in dense traffic when in the outside lane to exit the highway. When you're in the fastest moving lane and keeping up with traffic, few drivers are going to over/undertake you just to get into the gap. More typically they'll overtake the car in front of you too so it's not a problem. Admittedly most of my driving is in UK and NW Europe rather than the US. US drivers seem a lot more suicidal and US highways tend to be less predictable by design.