Two car lengths on the highway is not enough car lengths to make a meaningful difference in the event of a crash or giving you time to react to an emergency situation up ahead.
That being said, I respect that you leave any car lengths at all and it’s probably better than nothing. Especially since other drivers see any more than that as a challenge to enter that gap. Which is dangerous as shit and they are wrong but won’t learn even after they wreck doing it.
Sometimes all traffic is speeding along, as in 5-10mph over the speed limit, and it looks like pack racing. I keep thinking, all it takes is one distracted driver and it’s a 30 car pile up.
When I was a kid the recommendation was 2 seconds (‘two Mississippi’) but that was when the speed limit was 55 mph on the interstate and cars weren’t as heavy as they are now. Glad to hear they bumped it up.
We also have much better brajes (discs and ABS) and tires (radials) now. So there’s much less stopping distance once you actually hit the brakes. But reaction times are the still the same.
Two car lengths on the highway is not enough car lengths to make a meaningful difference in the event of a crash or giving you time to react to an emergency situation up ahead.
That being said, I respect that you leave any car lengths at all and it’s probably better than nothing. Especially since other drivers see any more than that as a challenge to enter that gap. Which is dangerous as shit and they are wrong but won’t learn even after they wreck doing it.
I think the safety guidelines are 3 seconds of reaction time which comes out to about 1 car length per 10 MPH of speed.
But yeah, good luck with that because other drivers just see that as space they can merge.
Sometimes all traffic is speeding along, as in 5-10mph over the speed limit, and it looks like pack racing. I keep thinking, all it takes is one distracted driver and it’s a 30 car pile up.
When I was a kid the recommendation was 2 seconds (‘two Mississippi’) but that was when the speed limit was 55 mph on the interstate and cars weren’t as heavy as they are now. Glad to hear they bumped it up.
We also have much better brajes (discs and ABS) and tires (radials) now. So there’s much less stopping distance once you actually hit the brakes. But reaction times are the still the same.