Aye, and 2 seconds is the bare minimum. A company I have worked for wanted 4 seconds between you and the car in front. That always felt a little much, but it definitely helped prevent wrecks.

I was taught to look when the car in front drives past a landmark like a lamppost, then say to myself "Only a fool breaks the two second rule"

If you pass the lamppost before you finish saying it, you're too close

Help me out with this, because it's driving me crazy. Whenever I leave anywhere close to 2 seconds between me and the car on front of me, someone cuts in, and I'm now too close to them, so I slow down, leaving a 2 second gap, and another cuts in. Rinse, repeat. I end up being the slow ass that everyone keeps zooming around unless I tailgate.

At 65mph, you cover two car lengths (~30 ft) in about 1/3 of a second.

Typically human reaction time for braking is about 1.5 seconds.

If something went seriously wrong in front of you (like a sideways car, or a hidden obstacle in front of the car in front of you) you would have covered 10 car lengths before your foot touches the brake pedal.

Then you need to lift off the accellerator, don't brake check or anything, just slowly slow down.

If the car behind you won't give you enough safety margin to maintain a high speed, then your only option to maintain safety is to reduce your speed so that the safety margin they give you is enough to stop in time for an accident.

Here in Sweden we have plenty of roundabouts, I will use those to also get rid of annoying drivers who just can't manage their distance, if I have someone like that behind me when I get to a roundabout, I just drive a full lap of the roundabout and let them pass.

I will allways let these guys past when I can, they are in a rush to their own accident, and I am not, let them pass and and make them stop being my problem, if I can't find a place to let them pass I will reduce my speed to compensate for their lack of safety margins

Visit Tennessee and get back to me. Moving from Tennessee to Michigan I noticed a distinct uptick in the quality of driving.

Intelligent people leave a whole fucking lot more than just two car lengths.

Two car lengths isn't even remotely enough space if you're traveling at high speeds.

What is this in imperial? How many bullets per square-child?

I was rear ended, HARD once. That distance gave me the space to control both my vehicle, and the one that hit me. It turned a potential multi car, multi lane pileup into a 2 vehicle wreck, either 1 more dinged car.

The space isn't for the 99.999% of the time, but that 0.001% OH FUCK time.

At 60mph with a 2 second following distance, you'd need about 176 feet, so you'd want 3 car lengths with 50 foot cars.

"Only a fool breaks the 2 second rule."

I was taught to repeat that phrase, at a normal steady pace, when I saw the back of their car go past something, to use as a marker (a signpost, the end of one of the lines on the road, whatever).

If you finish the phrase after the front of your car has gone past the same marker, then you don't have a big enough braking distance and need to ease off a bit.

I've always preferred the 2 second rule. You don't need to do distance math in your head, just find a tree and count the time it takes to get from their car to yours.

I always (sometimes) do three seconds between me and the car in front of me. That automatically adjusts for increased speed.

How am I supposed to leave 10 car lengths while speeding through a school zone? Explain!