they were saying :
60mph - 18m thinking distance, 55m stopping distance = 73m.
60mph - 2 second gap is 1-30 mile, 1609-30 = 54m. 60mph - 3 second gap is 1-20 mile, 1609-20 = 81m.
The Highway Code braking figures are wild overestimates for virtually any modern car, being unchanged since the days of shirt-button-sized drum brakes without servos and 4" wide crossply tyres.
No, there won't.
The distance between you and the car in front is irrelevant if a tank comes over the armco into the gap you've left - and if you've left a 7- second gap, it's far more likely than to appear in the 1-second gap in front of the car you're following - What then?
Tailgating through traffic lights 5152Yes, that is right. But to be safe that is what you need. As i said, panic braking is to be avoided, and in the weyt or on ice, you won't achive your 0.9g whatever...
None of those would cause an *instant* stop. The "wreckage" would continue onwards for sufficient distance to give you braking distance.
Also, it's most unlikely that the entire width of all lanes would be closed, and you have left yourself a sideways escape by not boxing yourself in right next to another vehicle, haven't you?
The improvement in road safety from leaving a gap as large as you suggest would be negligable compared to the increase in congestion. The single biggest improvement would be to actually encourage people to pay sufficient intelligence, attention and thought to the task in hand.
Has anybody else seen the TV ad for (IIRC?) Magic FM?
Young couple in car, her driving, not slowly, perhaps 50mph, radio blasting, dancing away to the music, singing along. They enter a tunnel. The radio dissolves away. They sit there, bored out of their heads. They exit the tunnel, music returns, they ping back to life, dancing away.
Erm, what attention is being paid to the road?
