[orpheansodality]

if you think about the speeds involved, a single additional car in front of you on the freeway (or even any additional cars) adds pretty miniscule time to the total commute.

Let's compare a few situations. In the baseline you're tailing the car in front of you with a focus on not letting anyone cheat and get in front of you, let's say 50 feet away. Your commute is 30 miles, and in this frictionless sphere of traffic you're going 60mph the whole time. You get to work in 30 minutes flat.

In the second scenario you're following the 3-second rule[0]. This would put you ~285 feet behind the car in front of you. Let's say over the course of your commute 20 cars move in front of you. If the average car length is 15 feet, and they all are 50 feet away from each other, when all 20 cars are in place you're a net -(20 * 65) feet away from the original car, or 1300 feet total. At 60 mph that adds ~15 seconds to your total commute time.

Well worth having an easier time avoiding a potential crash IMO! Also has the benefit of helping prevent traffic to begin with[1]

0: https://driversed.com/trending/what-safe-following-distance.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzzSao6ypE

[manquer]

It is not about efficiency or trying not to be slow. I am not bothered how many people cut in line or "cheat".[1]

Someone will always keep cutting into the space. It is impossible to maintain 3 second to the car ahead. First one car will cut in, you make room for them and add 3 second gap the next car will cut in. Maintaining even a 1 second gap is sometimes very hard close to exits.

[1] Personally my driving pattern changed once I switched to driving a hydrogen fuel cell Mirai, slower is better on the mileage and fuel cell owners are very range conscious.

[orpheansodality]

it's anecdata but I drive this this on the regular and don't have any issues! May be some regional differences