Tailgating.

[Ancient]

Could be a good idea to clean your windscreen for a while.

Dom

Ah - you mean with a squirt. Got there in the end .

The most irritating example I find is someone pushing, pushing, pushing, then overtaking just before they turn left.

It is interesting to count the number of brake applications following a tailgater. BMWs seem the worst. Perhaps they have shares in Ferodo.

Back in the days of my cycle commuting in London, I used to counter the irritation this caused by counting the seconds between overtake and turning off or coming to the back of a queue: On a one hour journey, the average usually came out between 5 and 7 seconds

[GJD]

The most irritating example I find is someone pushing, pushing, pushing, then overtaking just before they turn left.

Outside of the extreme case of overtaking so close to turning off that my slowing to turn would inconvenience the driver I've just overtaken, as a general principle I wouldn't decline an overtaking opportunity just because I'm turning off soon as I don't know that the driver in front isn't going to take the same turning.

Pushing, pushing, pushing beforehand isn't necessary though. Mind you, I tend to find the same as Gareth I think - if someone is trying to shovel me along the road faster they don't usually seem to also be looking for overtaking opportunities.

[ericonabike]

Perhaps we need to analyse why it causes so much anguish? From a purely logical standpoint, the danger is minimal - you are anticipating conditions ahead as usual, and the two vehicles are of necessity going at the same speed. Unless you brake suddenly, there is only going to be contact between the two if the following car deliberately shunts you - and I've never heard of that happening outside the movies. FWIW I've found that cruise control calms things down a lot, if conditions permit. Would you agree that the danger is more perceived than real?

[Ancient]

Perhaps we need to analyse why it causes so much anguish? From a purely logical standpoint, the danger is minimal - you are anticipating conditions ahead as usual, and the two vehicles are of necessity going at the same speed. Unless you brake suddenly, there is only going to be contact between the two if the following car deliberately shunts you - and I've never heard of that happening outside the movies. FWIW I've found that cruise control calms things down a lot, if conditions permit. Would you agree that the danger is more perceived than real?

Really? What if the following driver is paying as much attention to his/her CD player as the road ahead and fails to notice your brake lights? What if the following driver is simply incompetent (as I assume anyone who tailgates is) and fails to keep tabs on your slowing for a developing situation ahead? Perhaps they will notice if you show brake lights (or perhaps not) but this means that the opportunity to use acceleration sense to maintain distance is limited by their selfish behaviour. What if someone else makes a stupid manoevre (such as pulling from lane1 across lane2 to lane3 directly in front of you) forcing you to brake suddenly?

[Horse]

Perhaps we need to analyse why it causes so much anguish? From a purely logical standpoint, the danger is minimal

Isn't it a case that a collision is far more likely than if the following driver was maintaining an extended distance?

There is, of course, an irony that if the following vehicle is really, really close, then although a collision may be far more likely then the actual difference in speed between the two vehicles may be minimal!

The worst situation, of course, would be if the following driver didn't brake at all, in which case you're trying to stop both vehicles and if there's an impact with the vehicle in front of you then your car becomes the one behind's crumble zone . . .

[7db]

Would you agree that the danger is more perceived than real?

It's clear that there are many more tailgating events than crashes, but i'm not sure that makes the tailgating fear unreal.

It is distressing because it is a loss of control -- ceding your ability to be safe to the driver behind -- who may or may not be a trustworthy person.

[Gareth]

you are anticipating conditions ahead as usual, and the two vehicles are of necessity going at the same speed. Unless you brake suddenly, there is only going to be contact between the two if the following car deliberately shunts you

What level of concentration must the following driver maintain if they are going to follow safely with a two-second gap?

What about if the gap is much less than one second?

[revian]

you are anticipating conditions ahead as usual, and the two vehicles are of necessity going at the same speed. Unless you brake suddenly, there is only going to be contact between the two if the following car deliberately shunts you

What level of concentration must the following driver maintain if they are going to follow safely with a two-second gap?

What about if the gap is much less than one second?

Just let me think about that for a moment...

[ericonabike]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a tailgating apologist. It's an ignorant, aggressive act performed by ignorant, aggressive people. But the only crash reports I can recall where tailgating has been cited are those where the tailgatee, as it were, has reacted and there has been a road rage encounter subsequently. And in 'proper' tailgate incidents, where the offender is living in your boot, their bulging eyes and other facial expressions suggest that they are at least paying SOME attention! As previous posters have intimated, I suspect the biggest danger is in reacting to the situation in what the tailgater could perceive as a threatening manner.

[TripleS]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a tailgating apologist. It's an ignorant, aggressive act performed by ignorant, aggressive people. But the only crash reports I can recall where tailgating has been cited are those where the tailgatee, as it were, has reacted and there has been a road rage encounter subsequently. And in 'proper' tailgate incidents, where the offender is living in your boot, their bulging eyes and other facial expressions suggest that they are at least paying SOME attention! As previous posters have intimated, I suspect the biggest danger is in reacting to the situation in what the tailgater could perceive as a threatening manner.

I agree with you, ericonabike.

Tailgaters are undoubtedly a pest and a distraction, but I don't really feel them to be a danger, though it would appear that some advanced drivers are quite worried by it. I suppose I worry about other things instead.

[Carbon Based]

Possibly naive question: how do you define tailgating?

Is it only when the driver behind is so close that you feel your personal space as been invaded, perhaps in an aggressive fashion? Perhaps when you can no longer see their headlamps in your rear view mirror?

Or is it any time that the vehicle behind has left a gap that is smaller than the one they would need to stop without incident if you were to brake hard?

[Horse]

http://tna.europarchive.org/20120703124 ... AC957.aspx

&

http://www.highways.gov.uk/knowledge/pr ... -research/

Close fol­low­ing (dri­ving too close to the vehi­cle in front) is a sig­nif­i­cant cause of road traf­fic acci­dents and acci­dents on all roads. Pre­vi­ous work car­ried out by TRL for the HA sug­gests that close fol­low­ing is very likely to con­tribute to five fatal road traf­fic acci­dents, 70 seri­ous injury acci­dents, 1,000 slight injury acci­dents and 2,500 damage-only acci­dents on the HA net­work every year. These acci­dents cost £60M — £100M per year, which rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant cost to the UK econ­omy. Acci­dent data also sug­gest that close fol­low­ing acci­dents are more com­mon in road works than on the road net­work gen­er­ally. The rea­son for this is not clear but such acci­dents in a sec­tion of net­work with reduced lane capac­ity carry a sig­nif­i­cant risk of caus­ing major or crit­i­cal dis­rup­tion to traf­fic flow as well as plac­ing road work­ers at risk. The High­ways Agency wishes to under­stand and ulti­mately reduce close fol­low­ing acci­dents, both on the net­work as a whole and specif­i­cally in road works. This will assist to improve road user safety and jour­ney time reli­a­bil­ity on trunk roads and motor­ways, as well as improv­ing the safety of road work­ers in sup­port of the ‘Aim­ing for Zero:Safety for our Road Work­ers’ strat­egy launched in 2009

[7db]

hese acci­dents cost £60M — £100M per year, which rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant cost to the UK econ­omy.

UK Economy - £1.5tr so £100m is 0.007%
"significant"?

[Gareth]

hese acci­dents cost £60M — £100M per year, which rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant cost to the UK econ­omy.

UK Economy - £1.5tr so £100m is 0.007%
"significant"?

Depends on whether this is direct or indirect costs ... how can the cost of a snarled up road network be calculated?

FWIW I've seen the aftermath of many small accidents that must be the result of following too closely then not having enough time to react to changing circumstances. Most obviously during busy periods. Not seen many that looked like they might have resulted in death though.

[ericonabike]

I would suggest that 'close following' would be defined as leaving less than the recommended HC distance from the vehicle in front, which is a considerable remove from tailgating. Look at lane 3, in particular, on any busy motorway and few, if any, are leaving a one second gap, leave alone a two second one. But I suspect that none of them would regard it as tailgating. That is an aggressive and deliberate manoeuvre designed to intimidate the driver in front. As for a definition: if you feel intimidated, or in a position where you have to suppress such a feeling, you're being tailgated!