You say it’s false but then you address a different issue. Are you saying that modern cars do not have better handling, stability and braking? I do agree with your other factors though. But I think that it’s driving at inappropriate speed for the road and conditions rather than exceeding an arbitrary speed limit. We need the latter because we can’t trust people not to do the former.
So see the person in front of you, slowing down to drive the speed limit? That’s me – because you’re tailgaiting me and I want you to back the hell away before I drive any faster. I do not put up with tailgaiters. You’re dangerous. If I had to break suddenly because of an accident up ahead, or a deer or other animal running out in front of me, guess who’s going to cause a major accident? Yep. You. So back off and maybe that person in front of you might pull over or speed up.
Also note that if you have a large vehicle like a pickup truck or SUV and you’re right on some small cars butt, it can be hard for that driver to see into the next lane. You’re blocking part of the view and getting over is not that easy. Back off to allow them to do what they need to do.
I really detest tailgaiters.
As for peeplj’s comments about driving 30 when traffic is going 75, etc. I think there’s a difference between driving slowly and driving like you’re not in a huge hurry. Speed limit is 65 – driving 70 to me is normal. Driving 80 is driving like you’re in a hurry and making you unsafe. Driving 40 is driving slowly and makes you unsafe as well. I try to take a moderate approach to speed limits – generally 5 over, and usually no more than 10 over, if the roads are clear and the weather good. Obviously this changes if the weather is bad (everyone around here sometimes gets forced into driving 15-20mph because of the weather at some points).
~Crysania
I do the same thing. The closer some tailgater drives up my butt, the further away I pull from the car in front of me. It’s just good sense, as it gives both me and the tailgater time to safely stop in the event that the person in front of me performs an emergency braking maneuver.
The three times I’ve been in accidents since getting my driver’s license have been rear-end collisions during rush-hour traffic when traffic suddenly stopped and the stupid tailgater couldn’t brake in time.
Obviously I can’t defend tailgating as the right thing to do. But if you’re dawdling along and leading a convoy you are a danger to all the other road users who are only imperfect humans after all and you are inviting them to make some very poor decisions. You are not going to change that by pontificating about how dangerous tailgating is. Never mind knowing that you can swerve off if needs be. It needs be now, so have a bit of consideration and get out of everyone’s way. I don’t defend driving at speeds inappropriate for the road conditions either and I don’t condone driving by people who simply should not be behind a wheel. Too drunk or drugged, too tired, smoking a cigarette, a loose dog in the car (I think dogs should be banned from cars), a parent on their own with small children in the back, too old, too fat.
I hardly ever get tailgated. If you find it happens to you regularly you should ask yourself why!
Sadly, around here it seems to happen regularly no matter WHAT speed you’re going. I’ve been going as high as 75 in a 65 and been tailgaited, lights flashed and everything! I’m not going to fall prey to some angry motorist’s insanity and drive 80mph.
I don’t drive slow unless road conditions warrant it. But I refuse to drive like a bat out of hell to appease the crazies on the road.
I even get tailgaiters when there’s no WAY to speed up or get over – i.e. everyone is driving slowly in both lanes.
Perhaps you don’t get tailgaited because you ARE one of those crazies who drives way too fast. Patience truly is a virtue, especially on the road.
As for banning dogs in cars? Come on. Shall we ban children too? There are seat belt adaptors for dogs.
~Crysania
I have to go along with the hate tailgater mentality but I also agree that people need to get the heck out of the way if they’re in the fast lane going too slow.
About passing. When you’re passing don’t use your cruis-control and creep past the other car. Get your foot on the pedal, pass and get around them. I have seen this effect too many times. I call it the caterpiller. Truck in right lane is going 65. Jane Passer is going 67 with her cruise control on. She decides to pass but instead of passing she maintains the 67 speed. Meanwhile other drivers wishing to also pass the truck pile up behind Jane, inches from each other and form a long caterpiller. I avoid these at all hazards. Very dangerous.
Now there are times when a person in front of you cannot go faster or get over. What I hate is if the person in front of me is going too slow and the person behind me is on my butt though I have no choice about my speed.
I wish it were legal to throw hard objects out the window at tailgaters.
Last week I was tailgated and I have to admit it was my fault. I saw a big truck coming up behind me so I signalled and moved into the right lane. I failed to see the car in the other lane and she was justifiably pissed when I moved in front of her. I’m just glad we didn’t collide.
I think it was because I’d just dropped several pieces of lettuce from my salad and my ice cream cone nearly tipped over while my cigar dropped an ember on the seat as I was fiddling with the radio and trying to answer my phone.
I agree with Steve that cars have better handling these days but the problem is people don’t have any better ability then they ever had. Especially younger drivers who simply have not had enough experience.
I think Dale ought to include the psychological aspects of TV commercials on driving. They typically show people driving recklessly on mountain roads and imply that with their car you don’t really need to be able to drive because the car does it.
One more thing. Why don’t they show those old gory movies in driver’s education these days?
I’m guessing that you hardly ever get tailgated because you drive too fast. I’m guessing that I get tailgated from time-to-time because there are people who drive too fast and tailgate others.
My response to being tailgated is to go exactly the speed limit.
Professional driver on closed course. Do not attempt.
I saw those gory movies in driver’s ed. Still remember them. But, I gather at some point they did the research and discovered they don’t help.
Actually, research indicates that driver’s ed, at least the way it’s done in the USA, doesn’t reduce accidents in young drivers. The thinking is that it doesn’t include enough supervised driving practice.
they still show the movies - at least Nate saw them 4 years ago.
Actually, the Navy has taken a pretty hard stand on DUI, and while Nate’s been stuck in Norfolk/Portsmouth, has had to attend some type of DUI driving program at least once a month. One of these was patterned around going to a bar (served juice, no alcohol), having things put on you that made your reaction times slower, etc., getting into a “wreck”, seeing pictures from actual wrecks, being in a morgue setting, meeting the “family” of the victim(s), and attending the “funeral”. It took about 3 hours to go through the exercise. Nate said the pictures and morgue part were extremely graphic, and they were having to actually pull some sailors out of that part because they getting sick (he was close to leaving, too).
Yeah, speed limits aren’t for cars, they’re for people. Sometimes it’s not just the road, too – there are a few patches of road around here that are smooth and straight, through rural areas, with a speed limit of 35 (about 55 kph). In the last few years there have been four fatal collisions with deer that I remember, probably dozens of serious non-fatal collisions. I’ll bet every one of the people who struck deer was doing at least 60.
Don’t you just love the serial tail-gaters? The ones who, when you finally can move over, zoom up to the butt of the car that had been in front of you, then jam on their brakes as though it’s a complete surprise that there’s ANOTHER car there? And do that again when that car moves over? Makes you just wanna say have some decaf, all that sweat, strain, and wasted gas is gonna get the guy to his destination, what 30 seconds faster. But it will probably take six months off his life.
Leave early.
If by “too fast” you mean above the speed limit then I plead guilty. If by “too fast” you mean at a reckless and inappropriate speed for the conditions, not guilty. The best response to tailgaters, who are, after all, a bit of a menace, is not to try to police or control or educate them because you feel you have the moral high ground but to let them pass at the earliest possible opportunity. If you consider them to be a danger on the road it is perfectly illogical to make them even more dangerous by attempting to frustrate them. Just move over!
I know. That’s always my problem.
I would have to concour with Steve on this one (and this is coming from the guy who was just involved in a fairly serious rear-ender Saturday, who is also a fairly decent amateur SCCA driver). If someone’s tailgating you, move the hell over and let 'em go for heaven’s sake (providing there’s room). Get outta their lane if you’re in traffic. No superiority complex justifies you feeling that you have the moral obligation to force these drivers to do the speed limit. Chronic tailgaters don’t change their ways unless they goof up and hurt someone. They’re going to screw up one way or the other and nail someone, would you like that someone to be you? Frankly, sitting here in my office in a fairly decent ammount of pain, I’d rather not go through that again…ever. Despite the fact that I have a free Hemi Charger for a week doesn’t change the fact that my car is gone (I really loved that Intrepid, it was in stellar shape, and I’ll probably never find one in that good a shape for the price I paid for it) and I’m in pain. My personal practice with tailgaters is to get out of their way, and with the kind of cars I deal with on a daily basis, I’d rather not see them taken off the road because of someone else’s stupid mistake; no ammount of money, lawsuits, or whatever could bring back my father’s Plymouth Superbird, for example… You’ll do yourself a favor because you’ll reduce your chances of being nailed and the tailgater can learn their lesson on someone elses ride.
How could driving 75 on a road with curves and sharp rises and descents possibly be considered safe? And when that rocket ploughs into the slow car, how could it possibly be the slow driver’s fault exclusively?
(agreed that 30mph is an extreme example, but could 75 really be the speed limit on a road such as you describe?)
because people are rude?
I regularly drive 70mph (112.6kph) in a 60mph(96.5kph) zone, and do not hang out in the passing lane, and people still tailgate rather than moving to the inside lane and passing. It’s worth noting that the accidents I mention above did not happen in the passing lane. It’s also worth noting that the other driver was cited as at total fault each time.
Hmm, surprising that you haven’t been blocked in at stoplight at some point, then been hauled out of your car and beaten silly by some motorist who’d had enough of your tailgating shenanigans.
At any rate, won’t be long now before the dog lovers get a hold of you - banning dogs from cars Let’s rip out the stereo system as well, I mean if you’re listening to music you can’t be fully paying attention to the road. In fact, passengers can be quite distracting, let’s ban them too.
Loren
Phew! I live to fight another day, my knickers gloriously untwisted. 
I just think it’s amazing that in today’s litigious culture, in which you can hardly turn around in a school or workplace without some health and safety law stopping you from doing almost everything unless you’ve done a risk analysis or put on a hard hat, we can still allow 17-year-olds to drive cars capable of doing 150mph the day after they pass their tests, allow someone driving to light a cigarette, have a ten-stone dog loose in the back seat, have a harassed mother trying to control three or four wild kids in the back on the school run, have school runs at all (how damn dangerous are they!), allow people to drive huge cars that they were not trained to drive “because it makes them feel safer” (sod the rest of us then!), have huge car parks outside pubs, allow 85-year-olds to drive as long as they have just a nod from their doctor, allow obese people to drive who can hardly fit into the seat let alone use all the controls dexterously, allow sick people to drive…