So you’re going down the road, minding your own business, traveling at the speed limit and you look in your rearview mirror and all you can see is the up-close face of the driver behind you or the bold lettering of FREIGHTLINER or some other vehicle, staring back at you. Yes, your first instinct may be “I’ll just give this guy a little brake check” (tap the brake pedal so the brake lamps activate, but you actually don’t slow down). Bad Idea!
Following too closely is one of the biggest driving pet peeves that motorist have. Besides being annoying, it’s unsafe and illegal.
Section 21703 of the California Vehicle Code states the following; “The driver of a motor vehicle shall not follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent, having due regard for the speed of vehicle and the traffic upon, and the condition of, the roadway.”
So how do you know what is too close and more importantly, how does an officer decide who gets a ticket or not? One of the many aspects that CHP officers go through during their six months of training at the CHP Academy is collision investigation. During this training they are taught many physics lessons. To determine how fast a vehicle is traveling, most people rely on their speedometer, but what is more important is how many feet are you traveling in a second so we can then determine approximately how many feet there should be between vehicles. For those of you who really need the specifics, it’s miles per hour. x 1.46= feet per second. Stick with me … so for example if you are traveling 70 m.p.h., you are traveling approximately 102 feet per second. In three seconds you have traveled the length of a football field. The average person takes approximately ¾ of a second to perceive a hazard and another ¾ second to react by applying the brakes, turning the wheel or whatever you deem necessary to avoid the hazard. Traveling at 70 mph, in that 1.5 seconds you have traveled 153 feet. So the driver in front of you slams on his vehicle’s brakes because a ground squirrel is running across the road (believe me people will risk everything to avoid that squirrel). You had been following that vehicle with approximately three to four car lengths between your vehicles. The average car length for sake of argument is 15 feet; multiply that by 4, equals 60 feet. Do the math… There is no way you can stop and avoid colliding into the rear of the vehicle in front of you. And to add injury to insult, guess who is responsible for the collision? Yes, you lose on both ends.
The Department of Motor Vehicles here in California recommends the three second rule. For those of us a little bit older, we recall the one car per ten miles an hour rule. Either way, the idea is to give you an escape route and not having an ambulance as part of that plan.
So back to the original scenario, as an officer on patrol, I make my decision on what constitutes following too closely based on a couple of things. First, the speed of the vehicles involved. Second, the distance between the vehicles. Third and probably most decisive, is does the vehicle following remain in the too close position or does it reposition itself and eliminate the hazard. The reason that this is important is that many times I did not see how the following vehicle ended up where it did. It is possible the lead vehicle suddenly changed lanes and positioned itself in front of the other vehicle. The now trailing vehicle initially did nothing wrong other than remain in a position of danger, when he/she could have backed off or changed lanes. The idea about tapping your brakes is still not a good one. Although there is no specific law that states you can not activate you brake lamps for reasons other than stopping, these types of ‘I’ll show you” generally escalate to road rage which is another topic all together.
After everything is said and done, it all comes down to common sense and judgment. Please remember, “Instead of making good time, make time good.” Relax and enjoy the ride.
Monty Hight is a retired California Highway Patrol officer and Public Information Officer. He is the Northstate AVOID Campaign’s Public Information Officer. He lives in Redding. More information on AVOID can be found here.
