Safe Speed Forums

I make this thread because of a trip I took yesterday which I'll detail later. Basically, I'd like to know how many people are effected by other drivers braking out of a sense of panic because they haven't judged the speed & distance correctly in terms of where they are in relation to the car in front. Sometimes taking your foot off the accelerator is enough, but more and more I am noticing people braking because of something on the horizon that doesn't warrant that reaction, it just means you should be aware of what's happening ahead and you can ease off the accelerator to compensate. Here's what I'm talking about:

I was driving back from Nottingham on the M1 yesterday while it was absolutely pouring with rain all the way through. Visibility was terrible and the motorway had slowed down considerably. It was very busy, and there was a car quite some distance in front of me. I was in the middle lane and there was more than enough space left between me and this guy to allow for any unforseen hazards, even with the rain.

Ahead, it was obviously apparent that traffic was becoming more dense as the amount of cars increased. The chap in front of me broke as soon as we got over a hill and the scale of the more dense traffic became evident. There was no need to brake here, there was nobody immediately in front of him, nobody coming in to his lane, and nothing that meant he should put his brakes on. I am not being hyperbolic here when I say that he slowed down to 30 miles an hour from about 55/60. I was a long way behind him and so had plenty of time to brake, and I assumed a small car or bike had pulled in front of him that I didn't see. A couple of seconds later, though, it became obvious that there was nothing causing him to brake, and I can even rule out the revenge-braking some drivers do when they think they are being followed too closely because I was a long way back from this guy. He obviously recognised that the traffic ahead was not moving at the same speed he was but completely misjudged what his response should be. The rain, no doubt, quite rightly made him judge his stopping distance as longer than normal, but again I'm not being hyperbolic (maybe slightly) when I say you could have stopped a small plane in the gap between him and the dense traffic in front. He didn't need to brake, only take his foot off the accelerator.

This is just one example of people braking out of panic, it happens a lot. It causes a huge chain of braking which slows roads down and needless to say is responsible for many drivers getting shunted up the arse.

Anybody know what I'm on about?

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David

A lot of people out there don't seem to realise that if you take the foot off your accelerator the car slows down. I've also had people tell me that engine braking is bad for your engine and will wear out (random component here, usually piston rings) so you should use the "proper" brakes as that's how the car was designed.

But yeah, this is one point where I actually agree with Jeremy Clarkson, brake lights on a motorway are bad and will cause a big ripple as everyone (who is driving too close) joins in.

This is slowly becoming one of my pet peeves on our roads. Unnecessary braking on all roads. I do most of my driving on minor A roads (if that makes sense) and B-roads and I frequently seem to end up behind someone who:

brakes whenever something comes the other way (especially at night)
brakes for gentle corners when simply not accelerating would work (and probably be safer)
virtually constantly dabs the brakes (often because they're following too close / not reading the road more than a car length ahead of them)

With regard to the latter, I now "entertain" myself on my drive home by counting the number of times times one of these drivers in front of me brakes before I have to. 12 is my record so far and I have never been dangerously close (or conversely a doddering menace may I add).

For me, it's all about reading the road ahead and giving yourself enough time to react and, whilst being prepared for evasive action, not having to take any.

It does, though sometimes not as quickly as you might imagine it would - lifting off at 60-70 in my auto Omega works quite nicely, presumably because at that sort of speed the aero drag is significant, but at 30-40ish on a flat bit of road the deceleration is barely perceptible, and on a downhill slope I'll be riding the brakes to stay legal...

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Chris

How many of these people realise ,that following a vehicle at the correct ( or slightly more ) distance, all that is required is to lift off the gas and you will maintain the required separation - if you're behind "braking berty "( someone making love to the brake pedal) simply increase the distance - result-- a smoother journey .Only problem these days on motorways is the repmobile which sees the gap as somewhere to hide.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Works far better in manuals, and even more so in a manual diesel! With the high compression ratios you can get more braking from the engine than you can from the pedal, and its often worth dabbing it just so the guy behind sees lights!

what most people are describing here sounds like uneccesary brake application, lets face it they're not really doing much braking! just resting on the pedal for security or something.

what the OP describes going from 60-30 sounds like a fairly serious braking event, and in busy traffic much more dangerous.

fortunately in my experience much less frequent than the dabbers.

lack of engine braking in some autos is a problem, especially in my experience the robotized manuals such as the stilo.

but i suspect the proportions of dabbers are much hugher than the proportion of autos!

my car is brilliant at engine braking. it will even slow me on a gentle downhill slope. the scameras on the M9 at newbridge are a perfect example. they are in a dip. i can begin the downhill descent at 55 and be down to 50 when it levels out without touching the brakes.
its a manual

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
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I lose count of the amount of times I leave a gap, so that I don't have to brake, on the M3 and some dick sees it as an invitation to jump in. It seems to be worse when the traffic is moving slowly; sub-30mph.

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Prepare to be Judged

Agreed - but the worst of these, at least on the rural roads I do much of my driving on, is the "Oh my God there's a car coming the other way - BRAKE!" brigade - who are positively dangerous rather than just annoying. I'm used to them by now, and allow them even more space than usual, but for an inexperienced driver they could be a real menace.

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Save a cow - eat a vegetarian

They pose the same menace that accounted (in part) for the incident here: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16402. Namely, if you get close enough to overtake safely you are putting yourself in danger of the sudden braking they do. Which leaves you with 2 main choices:

Try to get past (safely) and risk an incident (as in the link above)
Hang back a safe distance and be on constant alert as well as not making the progress you would like.

I have found that option 2 often leads to other drivers who might not be aware of the reason I'm hanging back overtaking me and consequently closing my gap whilst getting dangerously close to the car in front. I must admit I like to get past as soon as I can, so go into a "super alert" mode and keep an eye on the road ahead and myself brake for oncoming vehicles in anticipation of the car in front doing the same. Thankfully, in my experience, most of these drivers travel at 40-45 everywhere anyway so they are relatively easy to pass in safety.

Mind you, I saw what looked like an incident of this not long ago. A driver suddenly braked for no apparent reason. But he had seen some debris that was very similar in colour to the road surface. Those behind him wondered what he was doing, of course!

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

Heading into work this morning and found myself stuck in a queue of traffic on a NSL s/c with no overtaking opportunities behind a 30-everywhere driver. Ho hum. Then we got to the first bit of the road where the morning sun gets right in your eyes, and not unsurprisingly said driver jumps on the brakes and drops to 15-20mph. To be honest, this isn't such a big deal given the huge drop in visibility when you move into the glare from the previously tree-shaded section of road, especially if you're not expecting it. But then, having successfully negotiated this glare section and got back into the shade, at the next bit of glare on came the brakes again and down we go to 15 once more. This cycle repeated itself a few more times on the way into town. Eventually the other cars ahead of me turned off and I ended up right behind 30-everywhere. Finally the reason for the repeated brake-jumping became apparent...

...rather than flip down the sunvisor to cut out most of the glare, the muppet was holding up their left hand and trying to drive along one hand on the wheel, the other waving around in front of their forehead

I can understand them doing this the first time they hit a patch of glare, but FFS, once your hand is up there you'd think their next move would be to flip the visor down so they'd be ready for the next patch of glare

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Chris

I had the classic example of scamera braking yesterday.
I'm in a 44 ton artic on the north circular northbound from Barking, I was on the cruise control at 49mph in a 50 limit, I was around 2.5/3 artic lengths behind a tipper truck dong about the same speed, he observed a scamera ahead, and hit the brakes until he was just below 40mph, and I was much closer than I would have liked.
I then overtook him, looked over and he was paying more attention to gassing with his two cabmates than looking at the road and his road speed.
A Beautiful example of how a "Professional" driver should not behave.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

Don't get me wrong, the event I talk about in my post is an extreme example. The conditions were terrible and this guy over-compensated by a long way. The dabbers, as you call them, are more common and even though they don't jump down their speed in such large gaps like the one in my OP, they are still as irritating and I still think they are dangerous. When I see somebody brake like that in front of me, I must assume that there is a reason and so I must join in with the braking unless I want to be sitting on top of the car in front. That means the guy behind me has to join in with the chain of braking and before you know it the road has slowed down completely because of one person who can't regulate their speed properly.

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David

I have to do this some times... I'm short, so the visor doesn't really do much if the sun is low. I'd rather drive with one hand on the wheel and be able to see than the oposite.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Oh, absolutely, I'll also supplement the visors with a bit of hand waving or repositioning of my eyeline to use another opaque bit of bodywork as a shield where necessary. I just found it frustrating that, given they were holding their hand up in the same position as the visor would have been, they didn't try using it instead...

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Chris

Fair comment!

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.