Collateral Damage - The Other Danger of Tailgating

When we think of driving in congested areas, we equate it with a series of battles over which we have to try to triumph as we make our way to our warehouse or supermarket.

One of the easiest practices to fall into is tailgating simply because we’re comfortable traveling a certain speed, and yes, a lot of the rest of the drivers are doing the same speed or a lot faster, and here’s this “dag-blasted” law abider doing the speed limit in the middle lane – DA NOIVE OF DAT GUY! He won’t speed up, won’t get over, you can’t speed up, you can’t get over, and you’re blowing your stack.

Yeah, most of us have been there, unless we’re either a very calm and relaxed personality, or a Zen Master of the trucking world. There is truly only one single possible remedy for this situation: Two quotes from the website called the Comedy Traffic School: “Whether you’re calm, nervous or hot-tempered, your personality affects the way you drive. Don’t let your emotions dictate the way you drive.” And, “You must remember that you have a dangerous weapon in your hands. If you are waiting in rush-hour traffic too long you may become angry. If you feel that you are too angry to drive, don’t.” In other words, my words, if you find yourself getting highly aggravated on a constant basis at the drivers in front of you or around you, you are actually in the wrong profession.

Think about how many feet per second is the equivalent, of let’s say for a nice even number, 60 miles per hour. Sixty miles per hour equals 88 feet per second. In one single second at 60, you travel 88 feet! The web site Copradar.com says that the average braking reaction time (remember, speedy, this is the average time, we’ve got to start somewhere) is 1.5 seconds. If you are only less than one truck and trailer length of distance behind the car which you are tailgating, and you react in the average time to a sudden braking of the car in front of you, and you just picked up and answered your cell phone at that time, or looked in your side mirror at some spectacle behind you, your rig just climbed into that driver’s trunk.

Following Too Close

You have to stay further back from the guy in front of you than the reaction time dictates – so if it’s 1.5 seconds, that’s 1.5 times 88 feet at 60, which is 88 + 44 = 132, and that’s not enough feet, because at that following distance, you’ll only JUST MISS that vehicle. At sixty, for even just a car, my driving instructor back in 1972 told me that I should be one vehicle length back from a car in front of me for every 10 miles per hours I’m “doing”. At sixty, that’s 120 feet for a car. At sixty, that’s what for a truck, 375 to 400 feet?

Oh yeah, what’s the collateral damage I mentioned in the title of this blog? What am I talking about? It’s the stress you put on yourself by making a task as mundane as driving into a war against all other road users just to get ahead (have you ever noticed that as soon as you get ahead of someone, there’s always someone right after that who’s in front of you?).

Are you the person who is always shrieking “COME , FIND YOUR GO PEDAL, WHAT THE $#%#@&! Trust me, if you think I’m talking about you, you’re not the only one. Is this a rant against you for being a road rager and tailgater? Not at all, I get stress, it’s just that the time for it is not when you’re behind the wheel of 50 or 80 thousand pounds of cranberry juice. Just try one time staying far back from all the traffic in front of you, and intentionally breathe deeply and relax when you drive, and see how much more enjoyably your day goes. Your blood pressure is likely to drop ten points, and you and the turtles behind the wheels out there may even live longer. You may be asking yourself why is HE qualified to talk about tailgating, like he’s some expert or something? Yup, agreed, I’ve fallen off the wagon a couple of times when it comes to safety. My incidents were in supermarket properties, due to a failure to pay attention. I guess on those two days, I was “too poor to pay attention”! But I have over 1.25 million miles without a chargeable accident, and it’s probably a lot of luck, but I also hate the stress I feel when I’m too close to the guy in front of me, so I stay back, not 88 feet back, more like 350 or 400 feet back.

Safe Driving!

- Stephen Clough - Senior Team Member/Driver - Brown Dog Carriers

Sources: ComedyTrafficSchool.com and copradar.com