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From: wmartin@brl-smoke.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.auto
Subject: Re: Obnoxious driver awards
Message-ID: <1895@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 18-Mar-86 16:36:42 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.1895
Posted: Tue Mar 18 16:36:42 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 08:09:36 EST
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Organization: USAMC ALMSA, St. Louis, MO
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All of the followups to this that I have seen have been reasonably
objective, discussing the time required for changing from accellerating
or maintaining speed to braking, and the distances required to stop
given the road conditions, etc. This is all well and good and
theoretical. You are ignoring the real question:

When you are maintaining the correct adequate distance between you and
the car ahead, given the traffic speed and road conditions, how do you
keep other drivers from cutting into that space?

I don't think there is an answer -- all I can think of involves
technology we don't have yet (forcefields, etc.). So it doesn't matter
what you *should* do, or what the facts of reaction time and momentum
might be. If you leave 6 car lengths between you and the preceeding
car, this space will be filled with at least 5 cars in some number
of seconds, if you are driving in commute-time traffic in any major
metropolitan area. You CANNOT leave adequate room in front of you,
because you will not be allowed to.

If you continually slow down to leave adequate room each time someone
pulls into the space you have left in front of you, you will be stopped
in a short distance, plus having infuriated those behind you, who will
have pulled around you and cut into this space anyway...

In short, it is not possible to drive safely, if you define "safely" to
be what the drivers-ed and state handbooks say it is.

What this means, in practical terms, is that you *have* to drive one
car-length or less from the car in front of you. This isn't tailgating;
it is reality.  (By the by, I am convinced I saw this exact same
discussion a year or so ago here... is this not true?)

Will