Defining Legal Following Distance
Following distance refers to the space that should be maintained around a vehicle for the safety of the driver, passengers, and bystanders. The importance of legal following distance is to maintain enough distance between vehicles to avoid collisions should one of the drivers suddenly stop.
It is a basic assumption that all roadways will be maintained and in good condition. In practice, however, traffic systems erode over time. Depending on the road and weather conditions, determining adequate following distance may change. When a roadway becomes slick due to weather or road debris , the opportunity to stop is severely limited without plenty of distance between you and the car ahead of you.
Most jurisdictions follow the same basic rule of thumb: maintain a minimum following distance of four to complete the stopping process. This is also known as the two-second rule which states you should have a distance of at least two seconds between your vehicle and the one ahead of you. The following distance increases with speed. For instance, if you were traveling at 60 miles per hour, your following distance should be about 120 feet (18 car lengths). When a driver travels too closely behind you, and fails to maintain proper following distance, you could be subject to road rage or even an accident.
Determinants of Legal Following Distance
The following are some of the factors that may influence legal following distance:
Weather Conditions: Rain, sleet, snow, fog, and ice can all reduce visibility and cause our brakes to work less effectively, meaning we need greater stopping distances to come to a halt behind the vehicle in front of us.
Road Type: Is the road hilly? Spotty with potholes? If so, we may need more distance than normal so as not to hit a bump at a high speed and cause damage to our vehicles or, worse, ourselves.
Types of Vehicles: Remind yourself that the bike, motorbike, or bicycle in front of you may be following the vehicle ahead at closer range because of the distances they have estimated themselves (or because of the fact that they are smaller than cars, and thus do not require as much space to be safe).
Twists and turns in the road, poor weather, and road conditions all combine together to create a pretty variable set of driving conditions. Rather than requiring strict following distances that vary based on these factors, it is often better to keep a good eye to judge how far from behind another car we are. In this way, every driver can react according to their own vehicle, circumstances, and ability to see and respond to hazards.
Penalties for Failing to Adhere to Legal Following Distance
Failure to Maintain Legal Following Distance Can Result in Legal Liability and Serious Injury: If you cause a rear end collision, your insurance company will likely pay out money for the damage caused to the victim, if you cannot avoid it or afterwards contest liability (blame) for the accident. However, this does not mean fault for the accident is placed on the victim, who (in most cases but not all) would not have been under the same legal obligation to maintain a legal distance between the front of their car and the back of the car ahead of them that you, as the driver of the rear vehicle would. A common defence tactic (although they usually do forget how this will implicate the insured driver) is to suggest that the victim’s negligence was the cause of the accident by suggesting they came to a sudden stop when you were following too closely and could not possibly respond in time. Of course, the reality is there is no legal obligation on a driver to anticipate a sudden stop of the car ahead – you are expected to be able to respond to emergencies, including sudden stops, within the confines of the roadway, but at the same time the vehicles traveling ahead of you are supposed to have legal space (a legal following distance) behind them to allow the emergency lane to be clear and accessible to first responders. Further, in most cases the timid of folk will not come to a sudden stop unless you are following just a little too closely to begin with.
Determining Safe Following Distance
Calculating your following distance can be relatively simple. Use the two-second rule by waiting until the vehicle ahead of you passes a fixed object in the road, such as a telephone pole, and then start counting the seconds that it takes you to pass the same object. Make sure that you count "one one-thousand, two one-thousand" and not "one Mississippi, two Mississippi." You should still have two seconds of following distance even if traffic slows suddenly or there is a sudden stop . If you do not have at least a two second interval, slow down and increase your following distance until the two seconds are achieved.
In inclement weather, the standard following distance will still apply when roads are wet, but during periods of heavy rain and even snow you should double your following distance by applying the four-second rule. This gives you extra reaction time and can prevent a devastating collision. Heavy rain can increase stopping distances by as much as 30% and a full four-second interval can reduce your chance of causing a serious injury or worse.
Legal Following Distance Guidelines by Vehicle Type
The requirements for safe following distance vary depending on the type of vehicle a driver is operating. The following is a description of the different legal following distance required for cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other vehicles:
Cars: Cars require four seconds of following distance from other cars above 18 miles per hour. For speeds less than 18 miles per hour, the legal following distance is one second of distance for every three miles per hour. For example, if you are driving at 60 miles per hour, you should maintain a distance of at least 240 feet behind the car in front of you (4 x 18 feet [per second of travel]).
Trucks: Under California Vehicle Code Section 21703, a truck is prohibited from driving in the same lane as another vehicle without leaving enough space between the two vehicles for the operator of the truck to be able to stop without colliding with the other vehicle. CVC 21703 further states that such space needs to be equal to one length of the body of the truck measured in feet for every mile of the truck’s speed. In order to clarify, if a truck is driving at 55 miles per hour, the operator of the truck must leave enough space equal to the length of the truck’s body, plus an additional 55 feet, to ensure a safe following distance.
Motorcycles: Motorcycles are required by law to maintain a distance of ten seconds from the preceding vehicle. In addition, motorcycle operators are encouraged to increase their following distance when traveling in heavy traffic and bad weather.
Commercial Drivers: Commercial drivers have a few more in depth laws concerning following distance than average drivers. According to CVC 21754, commercial drivers must be at least 500 feet from the vehicle in front of them, at all times. More specifically, a truck or tractor-trailer cannot overtake another truck or tractor-trailer on a downgrade, unless the truck or tractor-trailer being overtaken is traveling at a speed that is five miles per hour less than the other truck’s speed. Finally, under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, commercial drivers are required to leave twice the ordinary following distance of the vehicle in front of them.
Enhancing Roadway Safety with Legal Following Distance
With statistics continuing to point to a high incidence of rear and chain reaction car accidents. It is important to educate the public on legitimate following distance practices. Some drivers are obsessed with following other vehicles closely by increasing the speed to reduce the gap. Others are ignorant of the value of leaving space. Either way this causes increased danger on our highways and roads.
The Law in British Columbia The Motor Vehicle Act of British Columbia states that the minimum safe following distance shall be sufficient to allow the driver, in an emergency situation, to bring the vehicle to a stop without colliding with the vehicle or other object in front of him. Breaking down this legalese, following distance when braking is required is dependent on the speed you are travelling. Too many drivers believe that if they have their foot on the brake they are not tailgating. By this logic, a car going 80 km/h would require the same following distance as a car going 120 km/h.
Naturally, the higher the speed, the longer the breaking distance and thus the greater the space required between vehicles in order to avoid colliding with the vehicle or other object in front of you . Transport Canada, using information provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that rear-end collisions make up approximately 30% of all reported car accidents. This figure translates into approximately 200,000 rear-end accidents each year in Canada.
As cited in a prior post, the extent to which you are following another vehicle affects the perceived emergency stopping distance. In fact, it is well known that the distance at which a driver first perceives an emergency is the same distance at which a driver will engage in an emergency stop. This means that trailing too closely behind the vehicle in front of you constitutes a hidden emergency situation which precisely puts the driver in danger of collision with the vehicle in front of them. The irony of distracted driving and following distance is that it is virtually never the distracted driver that sustains injuries. He may lose his car, but he will leave the scene unscathed and walk away.
We must take an active role in following distance education.