The comments thread for the previous post raises the issue of tailgating. I’ve seen surveys in which the two most common annoyances are (1) tailgating and (2) slow drivers. Given that, in my experience, at least 95 per cent of drivers drive within a few k of the speed limit whenever they can, I’d guess that a large proportion of those giving response (2) are the people who annoy those of us giving response (1). Road safety would be greatly enhanced if these people could either be deterred or delicensed.
But there’s no obvious way of enforcing laws against this species of dangerous driving. I can think of various possibilities, but I can also think of technical difficulties with all of them. About the most promising would be a fixed video camera that would record all passing traffic. It ought to be able to infer both speed and distance between cars, and then prosecute tailgaters, but the computational requirements of recording this digitally and processing it automatically would be immense. Still, Moore’s Law is on our side, here.
John Quiggin 
I’ve never had much problem with tailgaters. all you have to do is take your foot off the accelerator and gradually slow right down. They soon get the hint.
What has often worked for me is when they get close enough, to put the headlights on. The think its the brake lights and they panic and slam on their brakes.
The slowdown technique is a good one if overtaking is clearly impossible. If overtaking is easy, slowing down just rewards the tailgater. And if it’s a marginal option, slowing down encourages the maniac behind you to take your life in his (sic) hands.
St Lucia, where I live now, offers some excellent deterrence options, as there are places where the lanes separate and you can go as slow as you like.
Why would you only punish tailgaters? Why wouldn’t you punish drivers who drive excessively below the speed of traffic. Surely they’re just as dangerous and annoying.
It also seems to me that a lot of tailgating is a response to bad driving: that is, driving well below the speed limit and not checking the rear view mirror to see if anyone is being inconvenienced.
A safe and courteous driver who wishes to drive below a safe speed is constantly checking the rear view mirror and will do what he or she can to facilitate faster cars overtaking.
I also suspect that a large percentage of tailgating occurs when a slow driver occupies the right-hand lane in a multi-lane road, whish is inconsiderate and dangerous, as well as illegal.
My observations on coming to Australia were that road conditions are materially worse than they could be from speeds being so mixed. These observations – mainly but not only as a pedestrian – are that slow traffic is safer than fast, but mixed is worst of all from being unpredictable.
The real problem is that there is so much moronic advice around to slow down. When governments send this message to the whole driving population they actually make things worse. They have succeeded in moving the situation from “fast” to “mixed”. They should stop such stupid generic approaches and concentrate on other methods, and meanwhile we should try not to make matters worse ourselves with our comments. I think the problem outlined reflects that very fact that traffic conditions are now so mixed.
Off topic: through strange channels I have recently seen some draft pages of a book Geoffrey Blainey is working on, an abridgement of his History of the World. I imagine we will see the finished work fairly soon.
I anticipated Mork’s and PMLs comments in the comments thread I referred to at the beginning of the post. In response to a cited paper by Lave, saying that “variance kills, not speed”, I said (emphasis added)
I’ll just add that, in my discussion of tailgating, I made the explicit assumption that the person being tailgated is (initially) travelling at or near the legal limit.
I see where you anticipated some of these comments on your earlier thread, but I missed the explicit assumption that the tailgatee is travelling at or near the speed limit.
I see two problems with that assumption: firstly, as any driver who has cruise control knows well, most drivers have a hell of a time maintaining a steady speed. Particularly on highways, almost no-one without cruise control maintains a steady speed of just on or below the speed limit.
The second problem is the one I referred to in my previous post: non-overtaking vehicles sitting in the right-hand lane. Even if they are on the speed limit, it’s illegal and, in my opinion, discourteous and dangerous, and if they’re not checking their mirrors for cars that want to overtake, they deserve to be tailgated.
actually the processing is trivial…considering we can do this: http://www.robocup2003.org/pages/photoDetail.jsp?idm=134#
theres no need to invoke moores law…
… they deserve to be tailgated
Mork, there are several things wrong with this idea. Consider the following scenarios. First, say something unexpected happens in front of your ‘offender’, causing them to brake suddenly and you to go into the back of them. You, Mork, are at fault, but that’s no consolation to anyone. Second, same event, but because of the pressure you place on the car in front, they fail to brake suddenly and plough into the obstacle. You go into the back of them, and they are at fault technically and you remain at fault morally, but what consolation is that to anyone?
Second, Mork, your ‘offender’ may just decide to apply some counter ‘road rage’ and brake suddently. You go into the back of them, and are judged to be at fault by law. What consolation is that to any of your, Mork, dead or mutilated victims?
Now consider the alternative. Calm down, slow down, drop back and be patient. It will seem like an hour, but almost certainly within 15 minutes the situation will change and you’ll be able to pass safely with only your ‘offender’ having broken the law, and no-one gets hurt.
I don’t know what you learned at school, Mork, but unless you’re a cop you aren’t allowed to enforce the law; tailgating is not a law enforcement tool anyone sane recognizes; and breaking the law yourself is not in this case a valid response to someone else’s lawbreaking.
I spend a lot of time on motorways in Sydney, where tailgating is common. Whatever the rights and wrongs, most of the time it’s not a problem: you just get out of the way.
Where it becomes a problem is in a very specific situation: Both outer lanes are fairly congested and moving at about 100 kmh, fast enough that sensible drivers are still leaving several car-lengths between themselves, but slow enough to frustrate the idiots, who will attempt to force their way up the queue with a combination of pushing into gaps, tailgating and flashing.
The aggression by itself may not suffice to induce rash retaliation but to ignite, on top of this, the noble Australian hatred of queue jumping, is seriously dangerous.
I got some whiplash when a young woman hit me in the rear. We were doing about 10kph on a congested bridge. That’s why it’s dangerous.
I used to slow down or give the emergengy lights a flash, but it often seemed to enrage people. Then I heard a session on the radio on road rage. People being followed and attacked, people driving with a tyre lever within reach just in case they needed it.
The standard road safety advice is to ignore them all, but if some-one really annoyed me I might let them pass, drive up behind them, flash the lights and then pull back. On second thoughts, I probably wouldn’t. Better to get out of the way and let them go.
btw, the standard advice is to drive two seconds behind. You do this by noting when the car in front passes a post or goes over a shadow, then count 1001, 1002. Your car should arrive at that point then, no earlier.
The worst tailgating is when truckies do it on the open highway; most of them have cleaned up their act in the past decade, but there’s still a few cowboys who seem to have a thing for intimidating buzzboxes.
And I don’t know about cruise controls either; they’re almost essential in these days of zero tolerance speed limits (it used to be 3% + 3kph, so 116kph in a 110 zone) but on the other hand, removing the need to monitor one’s speed takes away another random factor that keeps your mind active whilst driving in light to medium traffic on the open road, making the driver more prone to lapses of concentration.
Yeah tailgating and failing to keep left must play some part in accidents. A motocyclist is gone if they are hit in the rear by a car. And what also annoys me is when someone jumps in the gap between you and the car in front – thus reducing your stopping distance. Technically they are failing to give way and liable up to the point where a reasonable driver could re-adjust their speed, but you know that in court you will have a hard time proving it.
The single most important thing for drivers to do is to be pleasant. 99% of road rage can be avoided if a driver in the wrong simply gives an apologetic wave. It’s only when a person fails to give way AND gives the driver who just saved them a couple grand in damage a laugh or the finger that people boil over.
And thank people when they let you in.
JQ – I don’t think you anticipated my comments themselves so much as their preamble/background. That was leading up to the main point: current government policies are in fact replacing somewhat less dangerous high speeds with more of the worst case unpredictable mixed speeds. That should be changed, and we should bear it in mind when we put forward what at first sight appear to be sensible suggestions.
I have just come back from a return trip from near Portland to Bairnsdale. I was tailgated numerous times when I was travelling at the speed limit. Complete F***g idiots is what I reckon. On the M1 between Gellong and Colac the road is narrow and two-way. With approach speeds > 200kmh, in half a second a errant driver can cause a crash in front of you. Where to go when you are traveeling at about 56 m/s and right up someone’s arse? Tailgaters are *morons*!!!
BTW. A neighbour was killed in a headon on the M1 on Tuesday. I really despise smartarse drivers. Stay back fools!
Alan
Mork,
I agree that people who attract tailgaters are characteristically discourtious.
I disagree with people who slam on their brakes when tailgated as it is dangerous.
I disagree with people who tailgate bad drivers because it is dangerous.
I agree with PM Lawrence and John and anyone else who has pointed out that variance is dangerous.
Realistically as someone said most people who tailgate exhibit the behaviour in response to people who are discourteous – particularly those who breach the keep left unless overtaking rule.
People who fail to keep left or who drive discourteously need to be educated to see the error of their ways.
People who tailgate need to be educated to help them understand how dangerous it is.
In the meantime police need to take some time out from revenue raising to enforce the laws regarding keeping left and tailgating. Unlike booking someone for driving a bees dick over the speed limit this is a safety issue and the police have a responsibility to address it.