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This is an honest question here but why is the pile up so bad if driving conditions were ideal? The next 6 drivers were not keeping a safe distance or paying a

by jayd16 4y ago

This is an honest question here but why is the pile up so bad if driving conditions were ideal? The next 6 drivers were not keeping a safe distance or paying attention?

MBCook 4y ago
Have you watched the video? Its freeway speeds, a decently busy freeway, at a tunnel entrance that’s curving. Plus the car switched to the passing lane and abruptly stopped. This wasn’t going straight on a highway stopping in the same lane the driver was already in. I can understand how the conditions probably made it worse.
- Winsaucerer 4y ago
  > Have you watched the video? Its freeway speeds, a decently busy freeway, at a tunnel entrench that’s curving. Plus the car switched to the passing lane and abruptly stopped. The Tesla car switching and abruptly stopping was a big problem, and I can understand that first car having trouble, but for cars behind the first one they should ideally all be keeping a distance ready for suddenly hitting the brakes in an emergency. I find at least in Australia a decent number of drivers do not keep an adequate distance from the car in front for emergency braking.
  - macintux 4y ago
    Even the recommended 2 second following distance is insufficient when the vehicle in front of you comes to an immediate halt and there’s no room to switch lanes.
    - Mawr 4y ago
      The recommended following distance is "Never get closer than the overall stopping distance." [1], so even if the car in front somehow went from 70mph to 0 instantly, you should be able to stop. [1]: https://assets.highwaysengland.co.uk/stay+safe+stay+back/HE_tailgating_leaflet_v2.4__single+page_2020.pdf https://assets.highwaysengland.co.uk/stay+safe+stay+back/HE_...
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        Expecting people to follow that far is like expecting people to read every TOS.
        Spooky23 4y ago
        Dude, we’re talking about explaining away a Tesla failure here. Pedantic analysis of DMV regulations is absolutely essential. Clearly any dolt practicing defensive driving would anticipate the self driving car cutting him off and hard braking. Stories like this make people think that full self driving is actually a car the drives itself fully. The car is safer than any human and by critically thinking about this we are preventing sales and essentially killing people, since Tesla has fewer deaths per mile travelled.
        climb_stealth 4y ago
        > Clearly any dolt practicing defensive driving would anticipate the self driving car cutting him off and hard braking. Not sure if you are being serious. How can you tell whether a car is driving autonomously? Expect it from any Tesla? I haven't consciously ever seen a car driving itself. And I like to think of myself being pretty defensive as a driver. I'm not even sure if the feature is available in Australia.
        Spooky23 4y ago
        Of course I’m not being serious. But if there was a video of a Tesla doing anything, the fandom of Tesla is such that defenders would appear.
        Mawr 4y ago
        > Pedantic analysis of DMV regulations is absolutely essential. If you think following the most basic driving safety rule is 'pedantic', please don't drive. > Clearly any dolt practicing defensive driving would anticipate the self driving car cutting him off and hard braking. The Tesla was 100% at fault, nothing can be done when you get cut off like that. But that's not the case for every single car behind them that failed to stop in time. > Stories like this make people think that full self driving is actually a car the drives itself fully. In my opinion Tesla has been criminally misleading with their avertising. The level of gaslighting they've been able to get away with is unbelievable.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      The recommended distance is not 2 seconds at highway speeds. 2s is a rule of thumb for <35 mph; for 50mph, it's somewhere around 4s. But, in any case, it is your obligation to leave as much space as it takes for you to stop your car before it hits the car in front, taking in consideration the speed of both vehicles before braking and the condition of the road. The rule of thumb is there for you as a baseline; blindly following it does not automatically mean that you're in the right if an accident results.
  - amf12 4y ago
    In the police report, out of the 8 cars, only 3 cars were noted to have been driving unsafe for the stopped traffic ahead. The rest of the cars were propelled into the car in front by the car behind them hitting them.
    - MBCook 4y ago
      That makes a lot of sense. Doesn’t matter how careful I am if the person behind me only gave themselves 10 feet to react and stop.
      - onethought 4y ago
        Somewhat counter intuitively, and to great frustration of the person behind. The safe thing to do when someone is tailgating is to give more space in front of you so that you can brake more softly giving them more time to react. Or pull over and let them pass, as people often use tailgating to attempt to indicate the car in front is too slow. Edit: (tailgating = follow too closely)
        progman32 4y ago
        I used to think the bumper stickers that said "the closer you get, the slower I go" were purely out of spite, but yeah, as it turns out they can be both for spite as well as for sound safety reasons.
  - darkwizard42 4y ago
    That isn't the passing lane as its a bridge (not just a highway) and the left most lane before that area is an exit, so not guaranteed to be the "fast" lane.
  - cowl 4y ago
    its very difficult for cars behind to judge the level of braking. in a Freeway everyone assumes to break enough for a slowdown and not full stop. In Italian Highways there is a very practical custom. the cars that see a full stop not only break but signal full stop to behind cars so they know to fully break an not only slowdown
- larkinrichards 4y ago
  This is hardly the "passing lane," it's just following a left lane exit onto treasure island. the entire bridge is a splits into three different freeways when it touches down in Oakland. You pass in whatever lane is moving fastest. The tunnel is not curved. it's straight.
- ndyg 4y ago
  Cars are traveling at 'freeway speeds' in the video, but they are breaking the law. The Bay Bridge is signed for 50 MPH. This issue is endemic. When I lived in the Bay area, I'd set cruise control to 60MPH on the Bay Bridge, and would be practically run off the road by traffic speeding by.
amf12 4y ago
Honestly, when you're driving, you sometimes only see the car in front of you. You might see it slowing down first, and you start slowing down, or continue because there is enough distance anyway. Then the car in front of you stops abruptly or crashes. Now you panic and brake hard. Maybe you still crash into the car in front. Even if you stop before crashing, this hard braking causes the car behind you to crash into you. TL;DR - Sometimes the 3 second following distance is just not enough even if someone is paying attention because they can only see the car in front of them.
- waste_monk 4y ago
  >TL;DR - Sometimes the 3 second following distance is just not enough even if someone is paying attention because they can only see the car in front of them. Yep... the usual advice locally is 5 to 7 seconds gap for freeways and similar, before accounting for weather and other conditions. Of course, that assumes you can leave a gap without some bastard deciding to sneak in and occupy it.
  - intortus 4y ago
    On this bridge you're always going to have someone occupying open space, but you can still maintain 5 seconds of visible leading distance. Alas, a lot of drivers on this stretch of freeway are insane.
  - amf12 4y ago
    > without some bastard deciding to sneak in and occupy it Unfortunately, this. It sucks to keep a larger gap, have some idiot sneak in, and now you have to brake to maintain the distance again, repeat. FWIW, I am very careful to maintain distance just for situations like the one in this post.
- int_19h 4y ago
  > You might see it slowing down first, and you start slowing down, or continue because there is enough distance anyway. That's the thing, though - if you were already at the distance limit, and the car in front of you starts slowing down, you have to also start slowing down right away to maintain said limit. If you do not, then it's already "not enough distance" by definition at that point, and you're the one responsible for that.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
r0m4n0 4y ago
I think it’s mostly caused by the folks making abrupt lane changes as the Tesla slows down. You can see people start to swerve into other lanes instead of just slowing down (they are looking in their side mirrors to avoid the slow car and sometimes even accelerate). I’ve had this happen where you are cruising at a speed and the person in front of you serves to avoid a slow car and now you lose all of the time to react by changing lanes as well I’d even wager if that pickup hadn’t swerved and everyone just slowed down it wouldn’t have piled up Side tangent, I love watching car crash videos. Really interesting to see how the system breaks down and people make mistakes. I spend hours on YouTube sometimes :)
- antoineMoPa 4y ago
  The car behind the pickup truck had almost 0 stopping distance. To me, it looks like the pile up could have been prevented there too. Good reminder to keep a safe distance.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  > Side tangent, I love watching car crash videos. Your and my YouTube feed algorithms.... They kind of creep me out when it is a crash that was not avoidable. But, boy, most of the crashes have me talking to the computer display, "What are you thinking? You have no stopping distance at all, I know exactly what's coming up in about 3 seconds!"
  - r0m4n0 4y ago
    Exactly! Sometimes when I’m driving I get a weird sense of a terrible crash that I couldn’t see coming. I should probably give the videos a break
- aembleton 4y ago
  > I’ve had this happen where you are cruising at a speed and the person in front of you serves to avoid a slow car and now you lose all of the time to react by changing lanes as well It's worth anticipating this by watching the other lanes and what drivers are doing. If you can see a slow down happening in an adjacent lane then you might reasonably expect at least one of the drivers approaching to pull over in front of you.

by jayd16 4y ago

This is an honest question here but why is the pile up so bad if driving conditions were ideal? The next 6 drivers were not keeping a safe distance or paying attention?

MBCook 4y ago

Have you watched the video? Its freeway speeds, a decently busy freeway, at a tunnel entrance that’s curving. Plus the car switched to the passing lane and abruptly stopped. This wasn’t going straight on a highway stopping in the same lane the driver was already in. I can understand how the conditions probably made it worse.

Winsaucerer 4y ago
> Have you watched the video? Its freeway speeds, a decently busy freeway, at a tunnel entrench that’s curving. Plus the car switched to the passing lane and abruptly stopped. The Tesla car switching and abruptly stopping was a big problem, and I can understand that first car having trouble, but for cars behind the first one they should ideally all be keeping a distance ready for suddenly hitting the brakes in an emergency. I find at least in Australia a decent number of drivers do not keep an adequate distance from the car in front for emergency braking.
- macintux 4y ago
  Even the recommended 2 second following distance is insufficient when the vehicle in front of you comes to an immediate halt and there’s no room to switch lanes.
  - Mawr 4y ago
    The recommended following distance is "Never get closer than the overall stopping distance." [1], so even if the car in front somehow went from 70mph to 0 instantly, you should be able to stop. [1]: https://assets.highwaysengland.co.uk/stay+safe+stay+back/HE_tailgating_leaflet_v2.4__single+page_2020.pdf https://assets.highwaysengland.co.uk/stay+safe+stay+back/HE_...
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      Expecting people to follow that far is like expecting people to read every TOS.
      - Spooky23 4y ago
        Dude, we’re talking about explaining away a Tesla failure here. Pedantic analysis of DMV regulations is absolutely essential. Clearly any dolt practicing defensive driving would anticipate the self driving car cutting him off and hard braking. Stories like this make people think that full self driving is actually a car the drives itself fully. The car is safer than any human and by critically thinking about this we are preventing sales and essentially killing people, since Tesla has fewer deaths per mile travelled.
        climb_stealth 4y ago
        > Clearly any dolt practicing defensive driving would anticipate the self driving car cutting him off and hard braking. Not sure if you are being serious. How can you tell whether a car is driving autonomously? Expect it from any Tesla? I haven't consciously ever seen a car driving itself. And I like to think of myself being pretty defensive as a driver. I'm not even sure if the feature is available in Australia.
        Spooky23 4y ago
        Of course I’m not being serious. But if there was a video of a Tesla doing anything, the fandom of Tesla is such that defenders would appear.
        Mawr 4y ago
        > Pedantic analysis of DMV regulations is absolutely essential. If you think following the most basic driving safety rule is 'pedantic', please don't drive. > Clearly any dolt practicing defensive driving would anticipate the self driving car cutting him off and hard braking. The Tesla was 100% at fault, nothing can be done when you get cut off like that. But that's not the case for every single car behind them that failed to stop in time. > Stories like this make people think that full self driving is actually a car the drives itself fully. In my opinion Tesla has been criminally misleading with their avertising. The level of gaslighting they've been able to get away with is unbelievable.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    The recommended distance is not 2 seconds at highway speeds. 2s is a rule of thumb for <35 mph; for 50mph, it's somewhere around 4s. But, in any case, it is your obligation to leave as much space as it takes for you to stop your car before it hits the car in front, taking in consideration the speed of both vehicles before braking and the condition of the road. The rule of thumb is there for you as a baseline; blindly following it does not automatically mean that you're in the right if an accident results.
- amf12 4y ago
  In the police report, out of the 8 cars, only 3 cars were noted to have been driving unsafe for the stopped traffic ahead. The rest of the cars were propelled into the car in front by the car behind them hitting them.
  - MBCook 4y ago
    That makes a lot of sense. Doesn’t matter how careful I am if the person behind me only gave themselves 10 feet to react and stop.
    - onethought 4y ago
      Somewhat counter intuitively, and to great frustration of the person behind. The safe thing to do when someone is tailgating is to give more space in front of you so that you can brake more softly giving them more time to react. Or pull over and let them pass, as people often use tailgating to attempt to indicate the car in front is too slow. Edit: (tailgating = follow too closely)
      - progman32 4y ago
        I used to think the bumper stickers that said "the closer you get, the slower I go" were purely out of spite, but yeah, as it turns out they can be both for spite as well as for sound safety reasons.
- darkwizard42 4y ago
  That isn't the passing lane as its a bridge (not just a highway) and the left most lane before that area is an exit, so not guaranteed to be the "fast" lane.
- cowl 4y ago
  its very difficult for cars behind to judge the level of braking. in a Freeway everyone assumes to break enough for a slowdown and not full stop. In Italian Highways there is a very practical custom. the cars that see a full stop not only break but signal full stop to behind cars so they know to fully break an not only slowdown
larkinrichards 4y ago
This is hardly the "passing lane," it's just following a left lane exit onto treasure island. the entire bridge is a splits into three different freeways when it touches down in Oakland. You pass in whatever lane is moving fastest. The tunnel is not curved. it's straight.
ndyg 4y ago
Cars are traveling at 'freeway speeds' in the video, but they are breaking the law. The Bay Bridge is signed for 50 MPH. This issue is endemic. When I lived in the Bay area, I'd set cruise control to 60MPH on the Bay Bridge, and would be practically run off the road by traffic speeding by.

amf12 4y ago

Honestly, when you're driving, you sometimes only see the car in front of you. You might see it slowing down first, and you start slowing down, or continue because there is enough distance anyway. Then the car in front of you stops abruptly or crashes. Now you panic and brake hard. Maybe you still crash into the car in front. Even if you stop before crashing, this hard braking causes the car behind you to crash into you. TL;DR - Sometimes the 3 second following distance is just not enough even if someone is paying attention because they can only see the car in front of them.

waste_monk 4y ago
>TL;DR - Sometimes the 3 second following distance is just not enough even if someone is paying attention because they can only see the car in front of them. Yep... the usual advice locally is 5 to 7 seconds gap for freeways and similar, before accounting for weather and other conditions. Of course, that assumes you can leave a gap without some bastard deciding to sneak in and occupy it.
- intortus 4y ago
  On this bridge you're always going to have someone occupying open space, but you can still maintain 5 seconds of visible leading distance. Alas, a lot of drivers on this stretch of freeway are insane.
- amf12 4y ago
  > without some bastard deciding to sneak in and occupy it Unfortunately, this. It sucks to keep a larger gap, have some idiot sneak in, and now you have to brake to maintain the distance again, repeat. FWIW, I am very careful to maintain distance just for situations like the one in this post.
int_19h 4y ago
> You might see it slowing down first, and you start slowing down, or continue because there is enough distance anyway. That's the thing, though - if you were already at the distance limit, and the car in front of you starts slowing down, you have to also start slowing down right away to maintain said limit. If you do not, then it's already "not enough distance" by definition at that point, and you're the one responsible for that.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

r0m4n0 4y ago

I think it’s mostly caused by the folks making abrupt lane changes as the Tesla slows down. You can see people start to swerve into other lanes instead of just slowing down (they are looking in their side mirrors to avoid the slow car and sometimes even accelerate). I’ve had this happen where you are cruising at a speed and the person in front of you serves to avoid a slow car and now you lose all of the time to react by changing lanes as well I’d even wager if that pickup hadn’t swerved and everyone just slowed down it wouldn’t have piled up Side tangent, I love watching car crash videos. Really interesting to see how the system breaks down and people make mistakes. I spend hours on YouTube sometimes :)

antoineMoPa 4y ago
The car behind the pickup truck had almost 0 stopping distance. To me, it looks like the pile up could have been prevented there too. Good reminder to keep a safe distance.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
> Side tangent, I love watching car crash videos. Your and my YouTube feed algorithms.... They kind of creep me out when it is a crash that was not avoidable. But, boy, most of the crashes have me talking to the computer display, "What are you thinking? You have no stopping distance at all, I know exactly what's coming up in about 3 seconds!"
- r0m4n0 4y ago
  Exactly! Sometimes when I’m driving I get a weird sense of a terrible crash that I couldn’t see coming. I should probably give the videos a break
aembleton 4y ago
> I’ve had this happen where you are cruising at a speed and the person in front of you serves to avoid a slow car and now you lose all of the time to react by changing lanes as well It's worth anticipating this by watching the other lanes and what drivers are doing. If you can see a slow down happening in an adjacent lane then you might reasonably expect at least one of the drivers approaching to pull over in front of you.