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Comment by paradox460 | Hacker News Reader

My favorite is that if you try to follow a safe distance, some jerk will immediately move to fill the space

Just realize that the sort of people that move to fill the space are not the sort to leave even 2 seconds of following distance.

So once you restore your following distance, that person has cost you less than 2 seconds.

Is it a bit annoying? Sure. But it's not a reason to start tailgating (not that you were necessarily claiming that).

No, because once you to restore the distance, you have to go slower. The cars behind you then fill the restored space the moment they feel they can, because they perceive you as the slower car. If this happen with multiple cars and in practice it does, you are suddenly going very slow.

The fact is, you can have only so much space in front of you as other cars allow. I had to reduce the distance literally because of this. It then stopped happening.

The problem is, you move back to restore your following distance, and now another person moves in to fill it

My friend ended up in a hospital, when some jerk moved into the small space in front of him, and then had to jump on the brakes because the first car unexpectedly slowed down. My friend also jumped on the brakes but the distance was too small.

I leave plenty of distance and don't have that problem. Occasionally people do fill the space, perhaps because I'm providing a safer place than people tailgating. This reduced risk benefits me too. I just slow a little bit to re-establish my following distance.

About once a week I see someone cut in even though the person is literally tailgating. The driver at the back has to brake+swerve to not cause a high speed collision. There's actually nothing you can do to prevent these people from getting ahead of you. Don't worry about what they'll do, it's insane anyways. Just try not to die.

Or toot their horn and flash their lights behind you

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