What driving concept you feel that most drivers don't understand?
What driving concept you feel that most drivers don't understand?
I’ll start. Stopping distance.
My commute is 95 miles one way to work, so I see a lot of the highway, in the rural part of the US. This means traveling at 70+ mph (112km/h) for almost the entirety of the drive. The amount of other drivers on the road who follow behind someone else with less than a car’s length in front of them because they want to go 20+ over the speed limit is ridiculous. The only time you ever follow someone that close is if you have complete and absolute trust in them, and also understand that it may not even be enough.
For a daily drive, you likely need 2-3 car lengths between you at minimum depending on your speed to accurately avoid hitting the brakes. This doesn’t even take into account the lack of understanding of engine braking…
What concepts do you all think of when it comes to driving that you feel are not well understood by the public at large?
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Taking your foot off the gas and slowing down gradually when you see a red light ahead. People seem to floor it up to the light then stop as quickly as possible.
But think of the 1 extra second they gained so they can sit at the light!
This is mostly due to the fact that yellow lights have an inconsistent amount of on time.
EDIT: My mistake, the comment I replied to was not talking about when a red just turns. My bad.
In the US, the Federal Highway Administration has standards for yellow lights, speaking on this topic though. Many places don’t bother to follow these, however.
There’s a light where I’m at that is always red unless the sensors detect vehicles, then the light turns green just long enough for 1 maybe 2 vehicles to pass the street, then goes to yellow for less than a full second and then is red. Drives me nuts.
Yellow doesn't mean "if you're quick you can still make it across", it means "only keep going if you can't stop in time". Unfortunately that meaning is lost on many drivers.
My father used to do that at red lights and stop signs. There was a street we'd go down to get out of our neighborhood that had two stop signs, one at the end of each intersection and the second intersection ended in a T. He'd turn at the first stop sign, then floor it to the second and slam on the breaks at the last second. It was a long block, but it was still just a block. Always scared the shit out of me. He'd do it other places too, and that was also scary, but this was really terrifying, especially in the winter.
People can't downshift anymore
Nobody knows how to coast. I still drive like I have a manual.
I love having an automatic that still allows me to manually change gears. Engine braking is highly misunderstood and under-utilized as a driving mechanic now, and that’s a little sad, in my opinion.
But please also don't crawl to the line like a snail. I have a start-stop engine, I want to full stop as soon as I can.
Coasting is one thing.
But slowly coming to a standstill, literal a few seconds per meter, just to conserve that 1% momentum is dumb as well.
Especially when the cars behind you are trying to move to a different lane so they can turn and you are blocking them because you think you are "saving energy".