Tailgating Should be at the Stadium By Sandy Long 2010 This winter is not only early, but harsh so far with ice storms and heavy snow across the country. I have noticed that many drivers are tailgating both trucks and cars more in the bad road conditions than when the roads are dry. This of course could be due to many drivers taking the bad conditions into consideration and running slower for safety. Tailgating in bad conditions especially is just plain stupid! Recently in the aftermath of an ice storm in Indiana, cars were whirling around like tops ending up in the ditches and medians. I had one pickup come off an on-ramp in the far right lane while I was in the middle lane to allow the on-coming traffic space to get on the interstate. This pick up couldn’t wait for the car ahead of him to get accelerated and dodged in front of me and fishtailed radically cutting back to the right lane and spinning out. I had to slow down as fast as I could safely, if there would have been someone tailgating me, they would or could have slid right into my ICC bar. A week later during freezing rain in Illinois, a city truck pulling a 48 foot trailer rammed into the back of another trailer on icy roads causing a multiple vehicle pile up. The city truck had no hood left and I saw the engine in the cab, hopefully the driver wasn’t hurt badly. Both trucks were perfectly straight in the left lane; what do you want to bet that the city truck was tailgating? The first part of Christmas week I was coming out of Detroit on slightly greasy roads. Cars littered the median and ditches with their drivers sitting in the seats looking a little dazed. I was running along about 40 mph being pushed up the road by another truck that was running so close that I only could see it when it or I bobbled a little to one side or the other! When I finally slowed down to 25 mph and the driver went around me, he was driving with one hand and holding his cell phone up to his ear with the other. What a recipe for disaster! There is absolutely no reason to tailgate at anytime, but to do so on bad roads is asking for big time trouble. If you push a car, a couple of things enter into the mix. 1. The car driver may get annoyed and just hold you there behind them. 2. The car driver may get scared and do something stupid like speeding up or dodging into another lane causing them to spin out in front of you. 3. You may get a ticket for tailgating if the police see you. 4. You could lose control, jackknife and kill innocent people. So why do it! I was taught the 6 second rule of following distance to be increased in bad road conditions; this means that you should keep at least 6 seconds of space between you and the vehicle in front of you on dry roads. I try to keep at least 10 seconds between myself and the other vehicle on dry roads and will go to as much as ¼ mile on bad roads. This not only allows me to have plenty of reaction time in case someone else does something like spin out, but also allows people plenty of room to change lanes gradually instead of having to move over too quickly. I never use the cruise on bad roads and adjust my speed to maintain my following distance. When the roads are bad, leave a little earlier, slow down, increase your following distance and leave the tailgating for Sunday at the stadium; it does not belong on the highways and byways especially in bad weather. Ya’ll be safe!
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 14:37:54 +0000
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