Or veer out of the way of an obstacle you can't see, leaving you to either similarly veer or collide with it. IOW, do not assume you only need to account for your own reaction time; rather assume the vehicle in front of you can instantly stop moving and you must account for both your reaction time and your vehicle's stopping distance.
It takes about a 100 yards -- a full football field -- for a normal passenger car to react and come to a complete stop.
https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/road-safety/driving-...
This is equivalent to 4 full seconds of following distance, which is double the typical 2-second-rule recommended by transportation governing bodies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-second_rule
If your suggestion was taken seriously, it would literally halve the carrying capacity of our highways.
Luckily, situations where the vehicle in front of you comes to an instantaneous stop are extraordinarily rare, basically requiring a head-on collision.
On a non-congested road, there's no excuse for putting sufficient distance between you and the car in front.
If you can't see 200 yards ahead, you should not be travelling at a speed which precludes you from stopping within 200 yards.
On a single lane uncongested road, there's no excuse for putting a reasonable (at least 3 second) gap between you and the vehicle in front.
Huh? The whole context of this discussion starting from js2's comment is about exactly how far is should be, and in particular whether 2 seconds or 4 seconds (which at highway speeds is 50 yards vs. 100 yards) is more reasonable as a rule of thumb. As you can see from my link, most government safety organizations recommend 2 or 3 seconds in good weather.
> The two-second rule tells a defensive driver the minimum distance needed to reduce the risk of collision under ideal driving conditions. The allotted two-seconds is a safety buffer, to allow the following driver time to respond. [emphasis mine]
> Some authorities regard two seconds as inadequate, and recommend a three-second rule. […] The United States National Safety Council suggests that a three-second rule—with increases of one second per factor of driving difficulty—is more appropriate. Factors that make driving more difficult include poor lighting conditions (dawn and dusk are the most common); inclement weather (ice, rain, snow, fog, etc.), adverse traffic mix (heavy vehicles, slow vehicles, impaired drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, etc.), and personal condition (fatigue, sleepiness, drug-related loss of response time, distracting thoughts, etc.). For example, a fatigued driver piloting a car in rainy weather at dusk would do well to observe a six-second following distance, rather than the basic three-second gap.
I've had to veer to avoid accidents. At least three sitautions I can remember on the interstate: a semi truck tire blowout in front of me leaving large parts of the tire in my lane; a bike rack with several bikes falling off the back of a car in front of me; a truck in front of me veering around a obstacle (it appeared to be a pickup truck bed liner) I was blind to because I couldn't see beyond the truck in front of me.
I was lucky to avoid all of these because I had a parallel lane or shoulder I could escape into. When I drive now, if it's congested I leave extra following diatance. If that reduces the road capacity so be it. Compared to drivers who follow much too closely (which itself causes sudden slowdowns since they tend to over brake) or who drive in the wrong lane for their speed, I don't think I'm the person you need to worry about.
FWIW, I haven't been in an accident in over 25 years.
Your strategy to take all possible precautions regardless of large efficiency loss doesn't align with the reasonable tradeoffs that the vast majority of humans make.
It's an even more brilliant way to defend barely-working robot cars. Program them to err toward the letter of the law rather than road safety, then blame other drivers when they slam on their brakes because they mistake plastic bags for pedestrians.
Of course there are exceptions. There are any number of well-established circumstances that, if proven, place responsibility on the driver in front.
It is not legal to suddenly panic-brake to a stop, for instance, without exigent circumstances which make it necessary to do so. If a driver causes a collision by doing so they bear liability. There are any number of insurance scams that are thwarted by such exceptions.
Social responsibility be damned.
Really, when it's ego vs several tons at highway speeds it's not ego that wins. Further, 'I thought I saw something' is a blanket exception for sudden breaking.
When I'm driving, I'm constantly scanning for bad (i.e. unsafe or unpredictable) drivers in all directions. Once spotted, the choice is either to be well past them or well behind them. Usually the choice is easy.
PS: Tail gaters are creating a highly dangerous situation so slowing down without jamming the breaks is the correct response.
Pitch this line to your insurance company if you ever end up causing a rear ending. It'll be entertaining for the rest of us at least.
Doesn't matter what the car in front of you is up to or not. If you do not leave enough space to be able to handle them stopping, you are at fault. You should be utilizing defensive driving, and not depending on the driver in front of you ever acting responsibly or rationally.
It's not about intent, it's about behavior.
If I think I see a child in the road I'm sure as hell not going to stop and wonder if I'm just imagining it before I brake.
> "For purposes of insurance and policing, the driver of the car that rear-ends the other car is almost always considered to be at fault due to not leaving enough stopping distance or lack of attention." [1]
I'm glad we have drivers on the road that hope for the best in other drivers, but you need to sink this in your head today:
You should treat everyone on the road as an accident waiting to happen, and should practice defensive driving at all times in response.
(To be clear, I wasn't intentionally provoking anything: in one case I hit my brakes because the car in front of me panic-stopped, in another I was in a right-turn-yield-into-another lane situation and I checked my blindspot and found that there was a car who had right-of-way, so I hit my brakes to keep from encroaching on them.)
It was a good couple of months before they took responsibility for the accident.