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This would lose all communicative benefits. Teaching a young inexperienced driver “just always keep one car length” where one = safe, is meaningless. I don’t k

This would lose all communicative benefits. Teaching a young inexperienced driver “just always keep one car length” where one = safe, is meaningless. I don’t know you, but I believe a majority of people underestimate safe stopping distance. That’s why the webpage I posted, which is one of many similar ones, exist. That’s also in part why there are so many accidents. People are also bad at estimating feet, so telling someone keep 80 feet is also not helpful. But people are pretty good at estimating how many cars can fit between them and the next car. So telling someone, hey, you are tailgating that guy and only one car could fit in front of you, but you need 10 car lengths to be safe, has a lot more communicative power.

branon 4y ago
> Teaching a young inexperienced driver “just always keep one car length” where one = safe, is meaningless. Not if taught correctly, which I think it's important to note that we can't really do via textual communication. In the driver's seat, during a driver's education course, you might learn that a car length is the length of an average car, but you also learn how to count the seconds of stopping distance you have in front of you. In addition, you learn that weather, traffic, and other factors can affect stopping power/distance, the point being that the whole system is incredibly dynamic and variable. One can't reduce a dynamic traffic situation down to "X car lengths = safe." Similarly, saying "1 car length = a safe distance" doesn't really help either. The idea is to teach people what "safety" actually looks like. How it's referred to is secondary. The proof is in how badly I was misunderstood when I said 1-2 car lengths. I _know_ I'm keeping enough distance, because I know how to judge a safe traffic situation. I don't really care what a car length is or isn't, it's fairly irrelevant because safety is a much bigger picture than units of measurement.

branon 4y ago

> Teaching a young inexperienced driver “just always keep one car length” where one = safe, is meaningless. Not if taught correctly, which I think it's important to note that we can't really do via textual communication. In the driver's seat, during a driver's education course, you might learn that a car length is the length of an average car, but you also learn how to count the seconds of stopping distance you have in front of you. In addition, you learn that weather, traffic, and other factors can affect stopping power/distance, the point being that the whole system is incredibly dynamic and variable. One can't reduce a dynamic traffic situation down to "X car lengths = safe." Similarly, saying "1 car length = a safe distance" doesn't really help either. The idea is to teach people what "safety" actually looks like. How it's referred to is secondary. The proof is in how badly I was misunderstood when I said 1-2 car lengths. I _know_ I'm keeping enough distance, because I know how to judge a safe traffic situation. I don't really care what a car length is or isn't, it's fairly irrelevant because safety is a much bigger picture than units of measurement.