[presidentender]

I got one of those dongles from my insurance company that plugged into the ODB2 port and reported my driving habits.

I was a bad driver. It would frequently beep at me to let me know that I had braked too hard. I was mystified. "What should I have done differently," I'd think, as I raged at the objective machine that judged me so.

The next time my brother came to visit, he called mom. "Oh, and presidentender is a good driver now." I didn't put the pieces together right away, but it turned out that the dongle had actually trained me, like a dog's shock collar.

The reason for my too-frequent hard-braking events wasn't speed, although that would be a contributing factor. It was a lack of appropriate following distance. Because I'd follow the drivers in front of me too closely I'd have to brake hard if they did... Or if they drive normally and happened to have a turn coming up.

Over the period I had the insurance spy box in my truck I learned without thinking about it to increase my following distance, which meant that riding with me as a passenger was more comfortable and it beeped less often. Of course since I'd been so naughty early during the evaluation they didn't decrease my rates, but I think the training probably did make me statistically less likely to crash.

[mountain_peak]

Maintaining a safe following distance is incredibly challenging on busy freeways where hard braking is often 'required'. Most people have likely found themselves in this situation: vehicle changes lanes in front of you; you slow down to maintain a safe following distance, another car sees a gap and changes lanes in front of you. Repeat for your entire commute.

Incredibly frustrating, and I've driven all over North America - there's practically no major city where this doesn't happen. If you're not maintaining a safe following distance on city/residential streets, that's a different matter.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> vehicle changes lanes in front of you;

I will never understand why this is so rage-inducing for people.

Changing lanes is a necessary part of navigating, even during busy traffic. People on an on-ramp will need to get in front of somebody. People needing to move back to the right because their exist is coming up will need to get in front of somebody.

Your lane is not a birth right. Let people merge.

> you slow down to maintain a safe following distance, another car sees a gap and changes lanes in front of you. Repeat for your entire commute.

This happens because literally everyone is tailgating each other so hard that the gap in front of you is the only gap that exists for people to change lanes to either get on or off the highway.

[sagarm]

If you think highway driving requires hard braking, you're a bad driver.

[kube-system]

If you think people are going to cut in front of you, provide a safety cushion large enough to account for that. Aggressive drivers almost universally will consume the forward part of the space cushion you leave. At most you will simply need to lift the accelerator to maintain space. The only time someone cutting in front of you should require hard braking is if they also brake hard.

It does require patience to do this, because all aggressive drivers will use the space you provide. But ultimately the travel time difference in flowing traffic is negligible.

[bloomingeek]

Tailgating is against the law. Tailgating causes hard braking.

I recently pulled my travel trailer from OK to Charleston, SC and back. I never drive over 65 MPH for safety and MPG reasons. I always stay in the right hand, slow lane except if I have to take a left lane exit. Since I was always driving slower then everyone else, not once did I have to hard brake. Tailgating is a choice and a dangerous one.

I was never honked at, even by the crazy semi truck drivers.

[yial]

This is accurate in many ways. I use the auto cruise feature on my car frequently and I notice several things happen unless I set the distance as close as possible (which I don’t like to do. ).

1. In any amount of traffic above “a few cars” people will cut in front of me, sometimes two, negating the safe following distance. Regardless of speed.

2. If I have a safe following distance while waiting for someone to get over. (I e they’re going 60, I want to go 70), if I have my distance set at a safe following distance, people are much more likely to weave / pass on the right. (My theory would be that the distance I’m behind the person in front of them signals that I’m not going to accelerate / pass when the person gets over ).

Disclaimer: I don’t usually have to drive in any significant traffic, and when I do (Philly, New York City), I’m probably less likely to use the automatic features because the appropriate follow distance seems to increase the rage of drivers around me.

[gwbas1c]

I'm one of the faster drivers and I maintain a safe distance. (I usually have the most distance in rush hour.) It's very easy with adaptive cruise control or the other self-driving technologies that are on the market.

The only people who cut too close to me are driving recklessly.

That being said: If you're in the mode where people are constantly changing lanes in front of you, think a bit about how you're driving: On the freeway you're supposed to stay to the right except to pass, and you're expected to keep up with the flow of traffic. Are you going slow in the left lane? Are you driving too slow? Are you camping in the right lane by a busy interchange?

[OptionOfT]

> North America

Having driven all over NA, and Europe, I find it more prevalent in NA. Less distance, more people in large pickups throwing their weight around to make someone move out of the way.

And a design of giant freeway interchanges that require shifting lanes.

E.g. on the 405 in CA. 7 lines going South from the Valley towards Santa Monica.

That's 7 lanes you need to cross if you're in the HOV lane.

[Gravityloss]

I live in a place that has harsh winter conditions with ice, gravel and the occasional loose tire stud flying into people's windshields, warranting frequent expensive replacements.

Somebody on the radio said that "just set the adaptive cruise control to max distance and your windshield will last way longer". It does feel overprotective at times, especially in slow and dense traffic, but I think there's a nice point in general.

[amanaplanacanal]

Does it really matter though? Is the end result just a couple of minutes later in a 30 minute commute? Or does it actually make a large difference in travel time?

[ChuckMcM]

Okay I'm thinking of a very Shenzen kind of gizmo for your car that projects a bright red laser "keep out" box on the road in front of your car which is adjusted in size for your current speed.

[Izikiel43]

> Maintaining a safe following distance is incredibly challenging on busy freeways

I just put adaptive cruise control on max distance and call it a day, gives me 4/5s to react, and also it starts beeping hard if intervention is required.

It has saved my bacon a couple of times.

[duped]

Why does this require "hard" braking? If another car cuts in front of you just decelerate gently. You don't brake and wait until the gap is big enough (also if this is stop-and-go traffic, you should be trying to avoid braking at all)

[hansvm]

This was part of the training materials of one bus driver I knew. When people continually take that gap and you continually have to back off, it only adds a negligible amount of time to the commute.

[bsder]

Maintaining a following distance is going to be one of the things that improves dramatically once self driving cars are widespread. Self-driving cars simply don't care that someone cut them off, they'll just happily open up extra space again and again.

[rconti]

I find it quite easy to hold/manage a tight space that people won't cut into, and don't have to brake hard, because I look ahead.

To be sure, it's more mentally taxing to hold a tight gap, so it's not something you want to do all the time, but it's fine.

[singingbard]

I actually disagree.

People only take your lane if you are in the fastest lane. If you are in any slower lane, people tend to jump in and then leave and I have no problem with people who do that.

You can also keep a gap in the fastest lane but you need to keep track of other cars on the road. You’ll observe that most cars rarely leave their lane. People who tend to leave their lane keep smaller gaps in front of them. Use that knowledge. There are many more factors than just that but if you start observing everyone drive, your little simulation in your head will start putting other drivers into buckets.

[mitthrowaway2]

I leave a lot of distance, but people rarely change lanes to get in front of me, because the person I'm following isn't going any faster; the separation is in d not v. Most people who do change in front of me are there only briefly on their way to an exit, which means I'm increasing the fluidity of the traffic flow, so I'm happy about that. If I didn't leave space, they'd likely hard-brake in front of someone, causing a slowdown.

[patcon]

gah YES.

I had a slow realization that I could just let people jump in. My goal is to maintain a constant speed and never have to hit the brakes, and I can usually still do that regardless of whether people jump line.

But yes, the principle of it is incredibly aggravating ("that space is for safety, not YOU, green Acura!!!") but I actually kinda like the practice of trying to be zen about it. I mostly get through a long trip at the same rate :)

[tarsinge]

> another car sees a gap and changes lanes in front of you

Usually if you maintain the slightly slower speed you had to maintain a safe following distance it doesn't matter, as the distance will either increase or they'll leave for another lane. You have to get used to drivers doing messy things in front of you, but at a safe distance. When doing this you are in fact helping the traffic becoming more fluid.

[whitexn--g28h]

This almost always happens when you are in the passing lane, and you are not passing. It’s much more rare in the right lane. Mythbusters, and also other traffic studies, show that returning to the right lane on the freeway whenever possible adds almost no time to a trip.

[trgn]

> another car sees a gap and changes lanes in front of you.

it's largely a problem in the left lanes, thats where drivers will bunch up most. the subjective feeling is mostly a reptile brain issue though, the feeling you're getting done over. driving is 90% id, sadly.

[MattRix]

It’s not challenging at all. You leave the buffer. If someone sees the gap and merges into it, that’s fine! You always maintain the buffer.

It’s not hard to do. It’s only frustrating if you let it be. It really barely slows you down at all.

[sershe]

The most frustrated people are those behind you, and if I was id soon be another person merging in front of you. If people are constantly merging in front of you, either everyone is going too fast or you are going too slow :)

[bluGill]

False. I've done it many times - when you open up space two cars jump in, but the rest don't and so the space remains. But you notice those two cars and think it means more than it does.

[Dylan16807]

I admit that I probably don't leave as much space as recommended, but I leave a good amount of space to never need to hard brake, and people don't keep moving in front of me either.

[apparent]

Totally. People will just cut you off repeatedly, which puts you (and the cars behind you) in a less-safe situation than if you followed more closely.

[Der_Einzige]

Doesn’t happen much in Portland OR, at least before the invasion of homelessness here. We had the most “nice” drivers in America.

[alistairSH]

Now try it with a heavy trailer, where you need even more room to brake and maneuver safely. People are just idiots.

[angiolillo]

> vehicle changes lanes in front of you; you slow down to maintain a safe following distance, another car sees a gap and changes lanes in front of you. Repeat for your entire commute.

For the sake of argument, assume you follow the "three second rule" and that the other driver is slightly aggressive and enters closer to the front of your safety buffer. You are now down to a two second safety buffer so rebuilding it back to three seconds costs you an extra second of travel time.

In practice this happens to me about a dozen times a day. It sometimes feels frustrating, as if each of these drivers is stealing another second I could have been playing with my kids! But ultimately it's worth spending the extra seconds to slightly increase the odds that I arrive home each day to play with them at all.

[bjackman]

I find that respect for safe following distance varies quite a lot amongst the places I've driven.

E.g.

- Switzerland and (somewhat surprisingly) UK: pretty good, people doing idiotic shit is rare enough that I'll usually comment on it if there's another person is in the car. If someone is riding my ass I'll make the effort to try and shake them off.

- Italy and Spain: horrifying, impossible to relax at all on the highway, having someone 2 car lengths off your rear bumper is the default condition.

- France and USA: somewhere in the middle where there are a lot of idiots but they are still the minority.

Subjectively, the USA feels much more sketchy because the rules are so much looser around overtaking.

[MisterTea]

Safe following is super important. Few years back about a month after I bought a new car I was driving to work keeping a larger than normal gap thanks to a bit of "new car" anxiety. I was in the left lane, keeping pace with a cluster of three cars ahead of me, two of them tailgating. I don't know what happened but within seconds the middle car swerved, side swiped a car in the middle lane then rear ended the lead car while the trailing car rear ended them. Four cars smashed up right in front of me. I was fine because I had plenty of time to slow down and pull onto the shoulder to clear the chaos.

[wffurr]

Just like Lightning McQueen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvhFjVj7k44

[kqr]

Not only are you less likely to crash -- you're less likely to cause a crash ten cars behind you.

This diagram changed how I think about following distance: https://entropicthoughts.com/keep-a-safe-following-distance

[pinkmuffinere]

I find this diagram _incredibly_ hard to read. I’m pretty sure I understand the phenomenon he’s describing — without safe following distances, car n+1 must break more aggressively than car n in order to avoid a collision, so given a long enough chain of non-safe followers, a collision is guaranteed. But either I am dumber than I’d like, or that plot is terrible.

[xnx]

Thanks for sharing. I'm genuinely impressed to hear someone publicly share a story of growing self awareness and improvement.

[johnmaguire]

On the other hand, at age 20, with very high premiums, I got one of these devices which never beeped except on a few too-short exit ramps on highways in my city. The choice on these exits is to slow down traffic on the highway, or endure a "hard stop" by braking immediately when you are on the ramp, and coming to a full stop at the stop sign.

Just a few of these was enough that my "discount" was only a few dollars. I regret giving Progressive my driving data.

[ip26]

I had a somewhat similar experience - as I recall, most beeps happened as a result of a few stop lights with too-short yellows (e.g. the light changes yellow and you, even though you are below the speed limit, either panic stop or run the red light)

The only possible fix as a driver was to try to develop an intuition for spotting “stale” greens and start slowing down despite the green, anticipating the yellow.

I feel at least partially vindicated by the fact the lights in question eventually had their yellows extended.

[marcosdumay]

If there's no extra exit lane, the right choice is to slow down traffic on the highway.

What will happen if there's some oil spill or brake failure at the point you think you should break hard?

[_carbyau_]

There is no upside to giving personal data to a for-profit company with a monolithic amount of money and a clear view of the statistics around any activity.

The incentives just don't line up.

[HoldOnAMinute]

Is there any vehicle that uses it's sensors to make a gentle suggestion about following distance?

It's probably the best single thing anyone can do to improve safety. It also reduces wear-and-tear on your car, and increases your fuel economy as a side benefit.

Why hasn't gamification of safe driving habits been built directly into the car itself before now?

[vablings]

My wife's VW will show the following distance and if you are too close a small icon is displayed on the dash. I believe its warning you that if there is emergency breaking required for the car it will not be able to stop in time.

It also shows how close you are to the car Infront in "car length" units with a nice big indicator and the adaptive cruse control will follow that distance mostly on its own between 30-100mph

[pjc50]

Euro NCAP actually mandates that a following distance should be part of adaptive cruise control. A lot of manufacturers have turned this into a distance meter on the dash, in addition to the automatic braking. When I test-drove a Renault 5. I could see a little bar graph measuring how close I was to what the car thought was safe. Which turned out to be a lot closer than I would be comfortable driving! That is, the car would have allowed me to get much closer before it would have activated any automatic braking.

(the irony of looking at a meter on the dash to duplicate a piece of information I should be very clearly seeing out of the windscreen was not lost on me, though)

[girvo]

My Cupra Born does this; it has a little line that it draws on a "road" with the car in front, and you have to put the car in front of the line to be safe. Its quite a fun little system haha, works well on me!

[SoftTalker]

A lot of them do. My wife's VW beeps an alert if you're too close to the car ahead of you. It might be that it only activates above a certain speed.

I think it will also back down the cruise control (if set) if it detects that you are gaining on the car ahead. That might be MILs Toyota though.

I learned the "two second rule" in Driver's Education 45 years ago and generally follow that. Nothing more annoying than having the car behind you riding your bumper.

[_carbyau_]

My car beeps at me far too much now. I am responsible, not my car so I want less distractions.

Instead of pretending to shift responsibility to the car, how about people do training every so often instead? Maybe every ten years for an hour or two.

The amount of work a young person has to do here to be able to obtain a "full license" takes literal years and multiple tests.

But then nothing for the rest of their life despite advances in technology (in and out of the car) and changed traffic conditions...

[dietr1ch]

One of the few things I really don't like about my Subbie is that it tries to help braking.

I'm all in for traction control and to some extent ABS, but braking hard and upsetting the car's balance when you don't need it is dangerous.

[loeg]

Pretty sure my EV9 will actually initiate emergency braking. Though it is pretty conservative (no nudge to follow at a safe distance).

[ARandomerDude]

> Why hasn't gamification of safe driving habits been built directly into the car itself before now?

I am so glad it hasn't. Data point of one, but gamification now has the opposite effect on me: it's such a well-worn pattern that it just annoys me. It was great when it was novel. I wonder how many others feel the same but without sampling it's hard to know.

[Gud]

I can only speak for Europe, but driving too closely to the driver in front is unfortunately how 90% of drivers drive.

Unless it’s in Netherlands, where it’s 100%.

[binkHN]

I haven't been to the Netherlands, but I would say Paris is pretty close to 100%!

[eigart]

That’s pretty cool. Reminded me of reading [0] about how training surgeons using click feedback, like when you train a dog, works really well.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2018/06/12/619109741/clicker-training-fo...

[taeric]

Kudos on you for acknowledging that your behavior changed! It is depressing how many people online are convinced that the emergency braking systems are too aggressive. The best is the cohort that insist these systems will be what causes accidents.

[hiq]

As a passenger, I really notice the difference, and I wish more drivers (including professionals) would learn as you did. It probably saves energy as well, especially when driving in cities, although I guess it's marginal.

[coredog64]

Back when I had a Prius, I made a conscious effort to avoid using the brake pedal during the highway portion of my commute. It made a small difference to fuel economy, but treating it as a game reduced the frustration with stop&go traffic.

[dietr1ch]

I don't think it's marginal since accelerating the car needs way more energy than fighting loses due to wind and tyre resistance.

Also, a bad driver mis-breaking trips the cars behind into breaking too, which multiplies the energy waste and may also cause accidents through fatigue.

Mare experienced drivers will give you more leeway to avoid tapping the brakes with you, or simply go for a staring overtake.

[darkteflon]

People here in Tokyo follow at obscenely tight distance on the freeways and motorways. Drives me crazy. Don't have the data, but having driven here for over 20 years, I’d venture that short following distances must be one of the main causes of accidents on these types of roads. People are otherwise generally cautious and attentive drivers. When I’ve expressed frustration about it to locals in the past, the response is often “but if you leave more space, people will cut in!” To which I respond, “okay, and?!” I feel like a single big media campaign to improve following distances could result in a big improvement. So frustrating.

[jjice]

I have a friend who would also follow too closely to the cars in front and got one of these. Her rates went up and she eventually got into an accident (no injuries to anyone) because she would follow too closely and still break too hard.

Now she still has the machine, still follows too closely, and still breaks too hard in her new car...

Good it worked for you though!

[yial]

A cousin of mine is abysmal to drive with as a passenger. He follows too closely to the car in front of him, regardless of lane / speed. He will slow down, follow closely, and then aggressively pass. Repeating ad nauseam.

No smooth maintaining of speed and nice passes as able without slowing down.

Surprisingly, his accidents have mostly seemed to involve gas pumps, barriers, and other obstacles at low speed.

[socalgal2]

I'm always surprised at the number of people that follow too closely.

This always stuck with me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJFOTSYJrtw&t=466s

[ndsipa_pomu]

I've long thought that drivers should have some kind of black box monitoring their driving habits/abilities with that kind of acceleration sensing. As well as feeding into insurance databases to give safer drivers lower premiums, I think it would be ideal to highlight when older drivers start to lose their faculties. Another big benefit could be to diagnose some diseases early on - if a driver suddenly becomes less smooth, there's a good chance that they have some new eye or brain condition.

[dheera]

> It was a lack of appropriate following distance.

Not in my case. I keep plenty of following distance, 9 times out of 10 my hard braking is because some idiot cuts into that following distance and brake-checks me.

[CGMthrowaway]

>I'd follow the drivers in front of me too closely

Best trick for managing this is to "drive through" the car in front of you. That is, judge your following distance based not on the car in front of you, but on the car in front of THEM.

And you don't have to "drive through" all the way down the road - it only takes one car/one level of abstraction for this approach to yield really great benefits, try it if you don't believe me.

[eldaisfish]

This only works if you can see two vehicles ahead. Too many SUVs and pickup trucks are too high and have terrible visibility around them.

[m463]

I knew an actuary, and remember wondering "why do sports cars cost so much to insure?" Turns out that actuaries have very good data about which kinds of cars have more accidents, and cost more to insure.

She said the only time that the data and the rates do not match is after an accident. After an accident, the rates go up, however drivers are more careful and are statistically less likely to have an accident.

[lowercased]

I've got a tracker and it keeps showing "sharp turn" right in my neighborhood. It's counting the turn in to my driveway - a 90 degree turn - as a "sharp turn". It doesn't seem to matter how slow I go - I'm not racing in to the driveway - generally slowed to walking speed by that point - and I'm still getting 'dinged' every day for this.

[daringrain32781]

I was recently driving a friend and hit a mile-long backup at a freeway exit. At some point in the lineup, a car abruptly cut in front of me to merge into the line. The friend asked "why'd you let them in" - but I didn't let them in on purpose, I was just maintaining a reasonable following distance which people seem to interpret as "hey cut in here for free"

[dietr1ch]

The balance between safe following distance and letting people cut in varies a lot by city. Maybe he learnt to drive elsewhere?

I remember being too aggressive when I got to the Bay Area, and learning how nice it was to be let into the lane I needed to avoid being forced on a 5mi U-turn. When visiting back home I was too nice and people told me so.

I've reached a balance. Aggressive enough not to be taken advantage of, but being nice to drivers in need, specially when it doesn't really change things for me, like when letting a driver in costs me nothing because of how bad traffic is.

[bluGill]

It is called the zipper merge. You were in the wrong for waiting in the stophed lane and the other person right for passing all you thinking you are better.

[tsoukase]

Inter-car distance is always a safety factor but can immensely reduce lane throughput. There is a compromise. I remember a few decades ago, in California at least, they suggested the drivers keep a one-car length distance from the leading car for every 10m/h speed. Funny that I had to convert it in km/h.

[consp]

Inter car distance is highly irrelevant as the overall speed will quickly drop due to excessive braking due to tailgating. Maximum throughout is around 60kph. You keep 2s distance if you want to be safe. So at highway speeds that is around 50 to 70 meters

[techterrier]

not dying >>>>>> lane throughput

[mjbale116]

I have this image in my mind of a discussion taking place in a high speed rail possibly around 2100 where people will look back and say: "I cannot believe we had people driving 2ton steel boxes back in the day, I cannot even compute those micromorts"

[dpatrick86]

It would be really interesting if cars did this by default. Maybe it could figure out your threshold, how much of an outlier you are, and then you could opt-in to a new threshold that's somewhat better and/or closer to average.

[iamflimflam1]

As one of my friends put it - driving in the US is like being in Whacky Races.

[MeteorMarc]

If you have to brake hard, it is still important to not brake harder than necessary, to give the cars behind you the best possible chance to react in time.

[SLWW]

While i find everything about this post thoroughly dystopian; I will state that I don't break harshly, just about ever, my car still has it's original breakpads (they still have some life, about a cm and a half to two) and it had 107k on the odo. Never been in an accident outside of getting break-checked by an insurance scammer when I was 19, and a head on when i was stopped at a stop sign.

Although I keep a varying follow distance, if there is an open lane immediately adjacent to me, I don't care if i'm tailing someone a bit, but if I'm boxed then you better believe it's 6+ car distance.

[Mawr]

Driving predictably and smoothly is good. The only time there should be any braking considered remotely "hard" would be when something surprised you, which should almost never happen.

[redanddead]

Insurance erotica right here lol

[camel_gopher]

The problem with increasing your following distance though is now you get other drivers cutting in, and you’re back to where you started

[hamdingers]

> you’re back to where you started

This perfectly illustrates this broken mental model that leads to endless frustration.

Unless you put the car in reverse, you are still making forward progress. If someone merges in front of you at 30mph then you traveled hundreds of feet towards your destination in the time it took them to do that. Chill out.

[bluGill]

Only two, then people who maintain their lane are there and there is space.