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Do drivers in your area leave huge gaps when stopped at red lights?

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Ichinisan said:
People have told me this, but I don't believe it. You have absolutely no control over the mass and velocity of whatever comes up behind you. You could be stopped 5 miles behind and get pushed into someone.
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Nope, it's very true. The justification is that you had no control over your vehicle and thus are at fault, or you should have left enough space 'just in case'. The mil has a similar thing regarding being tardy to work/appointments. If you're late, it's your fault, period, because you didn't allow enough time for $circumstance, regardless of predictability, extenuating circumstances, or fault.
 
What I really hate is when someone in front of me stops a couple of car lengths away from the car in front of them, then will move up that length after several seconds. I drive a manual so I'd rather just sit where I stopped until the light turns green, but sometimes there's someone behind who can't stand that now huge gap and will honk to get me to move up. You seriously can't wait until the light is green?
 
If there is a stupid thing to do when driving DC metro area drivers know about it and do it on a regular basis. They bring every stupid habit from every state in the US and concentrate the stupidity in one metro area.
 
zinfamous said:
But you drive a Camaro.
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But I went from driving a 1963 Chevrolet Corvair Monza Convertible (102 hp rear engine air-cooled flat 6) to a 2014 Camaro SS (435 hp V8). You get used to the "Oh shit this beast can accelerate" after the first 500 times flooring it.
 
Yeah sometimes I see people do that. I see it fairly often around where I am (Metro Detroit). I think it's dumb (especially when you're doing that stupid shit on a light that is hardly green for long; you're potentially causing less people to get thru the intersection) but whatevs. Although that doesn't mean I jam up behind the car in front of me, I leave enough room so that I can see the car in front of me's tires. That gives me enough room to pull around the car in front in case of an emergency (I spot a T-Rex charging my azz down in the rear view mirror).
 
Leaving some space makes sense so that when drunk driver slams into the back of the pack, the chain reaction is less severe.
 
"some" space being the key word. No you shouldn't be touching the bumper, but if you're getting hit hard enough to need over a car length of space in front of you, it's going to be bad regardless.
 
Not really. I might do it if I were stopped at the bottom of some highway off-ramp.

**edit** Actually I've been known to pull up short, just to stay in the shade - gap-tastic.
 
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zinfamous said:
Are you guys murderers?
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Not as far as I know!
Cepak said:
But I went from driving a 1963 Chevrolet Corvair Monza Convertible (102 hp rear engine air-cooled flat 6) to a 2014 Camaro SS (435 hp V8). You get used to the "Oh shit this beast can accelerate" after the first 500 times flooring it.
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Gotcha beat, I went from a 1HP (human power) bicycle to a 2010 v8 🙂 Not to say I hadn't driven before, though it had been a few years. First stick shift too.

So hilariously related note, just yesterday I was at a stoplight, with a large pickup truck behind me that thankfully had given me a gap. Someone rear-ended him in a little red jobber, looked like a miata or an old hatchback or something from the front, looked very crunched up. Had that gap not been there, he might've rear-ended me.
 
That is the safest way, if you cannot see where the rear tires on the vehicle in front of you touch the ground, you are too close.
 
MtnMan said:
That is the safest way, if you cannot see where the rear tires on the vehicle in front of you touch the ground, you are too close.
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Except that's a completely arbitrary and useless measuring point that's completely dependent on the height of both vehicles and your hood. Nobody is saying not to leave a gap, but a car length or more is silly and I don't think anybody is doing that out of safety, they're doing that out of distraction.
 
XavierMace said:
Except that's a completely arbitrary and useless measuring point that's completely dependent on the height of both vehicles and your hood. Nobody is saying not to leave a gap, but a car length or more is silly and I don't think anybody is doing that out of safety, they're doing that out of distraction.
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What ever dude,
 
I generally don't leave that much space. I do stop several car lengths back from the line if I am turning left and I see the lines in the road where the advanced left turn sensor is buried. As people pull in behind me I move forward enough that the last person is on the sensor so we can get the advanced turn all the time.
 
XavierMace said:
Except that's a completely arbitrary and useless measuring point that's completely dependent on the height of both vehicles and your hood. Nobody is saying not to leave a gap, but a car length or more is silly and I don't think anybody is doing that out of safety, they're doing that out of distraction.
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So tell us your non-arbitrary and useful measuring point that provides for a safe gap that fits between car length (like car length is a non-arbitrary useful measurement) silly and that-guy-is-so-close-that-if-he-sneezes-he's-going-to-be-sitting-in-my-back-seat.

I'll stick with the where the tires meet the road thing as it is easy to do every time with any vehicle.
 
allisolm said:
So tell us your non-arbitrary and useful measuring point that provides for a safe gap that fits between car length (like car length is a non-arbitrary useful measurement) silly and that-guy-is-so-close-that-if-he-sneezes-he's-going-to-be-sitting-in-my-back-seat.

I'll stick with the where the tires meet the road thing as it is easy to do every time with any vehicle.
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Define "safe". If personal safety is your goal, then it's largely moot with modern cars. To get hit hard enough to metaphorically be in the back seat with a direct rear impact in a modern car pushing you into another car, the collision would have to be at such an excessive speed that no reasonable safety gap (IE any of the distances being discussed in this thread) would account for it.

I generally aim for 6-8 feet. That's plenty of room to get around somebody (although that's not generally possibly due to cars in the other lanes in most major cities), plenty to avoid normal rollback from somebody with a manual, and plenty to avoid hitting the car in front of you in an average fender bender which is the criteria most people are providing here. Before you ask, yes, I've been rear-ended while stopped at a light before.

If you're trying to allow enough space that you won't touch the car in front of you in any "reasonable" situation, then you're drastically underestimating the amount of room you'd need. Your average sedan is about 17 feet long. A rear end impact at 40mph from a moderately heavy (IE any of the millions of medium trucks/SUV's on the roads) vehicle is going to push you a solid 35+ feet. There's a variety of calculations on this from people way smarter than me on a various physics forums as well as observations from videos and in person experiences. If you want to plan for worst case....

https://youtu.be/gJIgD1wQaAU?t=44

There's other more "normal" examples in the same video

https://youtu.be/gJIgD1wQaAU?t=111

Impacting car is a pretty light car (Mitsubishi Lancer, roughly 3,100lbs) and started braking prior to impact. Impacted car still rolled well over it's own length in distance.
 
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