The Two Second Rule
We know that we shouldn’t stay too close to the vehicle in front of us – that’s pretty much common sense. The thing is, most of us can’t tell how close “too close” is.
That’s why we have the two second rule. As the name implies, we should stay two seconds behind the vehicle in front.
How does it work?
Watch as the vehicle ahead passes some object—I often use shadows or marks on the road surface—then count “one-thousand-one, one thousand two.” If you pass that same spot before getting to “two,” you’re too close—back off!
Keep in mind that this is just the minimum distance you should keep. There are times when you should stay even further away from other vehicles. When driving behind a tall truck, for example, you can’t see that far ahead. The same thing happens at night. When it rains, maintaining a safe distance gets even more imporant. In some of these cases, keeping an eight or ten second gap might be necessary.
There you go. Now you don’t have an excuse to tailgate anymore.
Written by Luis Cruz on May 4, 2007 | 1 Comment Leave a Comment
[...] Well, this might have to do more with the way the human body is designed and how much information we can process in a short period of time. Scientific data has shown that our actual active line of sight window (or the area of our vision which is fully analyzed and can be reacted to instantaneously) is limited to a few square inches in front of you. The rest is what is considered to be the peripheral vision area which we are aware of but do not have too much concentration on. Add to it the tunes playing on the radio, the shifting combination of the depressing the clutch and changing gears and you have a lot of information to handle for the human body to actually process (try this test to see if you are a safe distance from the car in front of you). [...]