Should You Increase or Decrease Your Following Distance?
Questions about Following Distance on Your DMV Test
You will likely see a question or two about the following distance on your permit or driver’s license test.
Since rear-end crashes are common, maintaining a proper following distance is critical for safe driving. Not leaving an adequate gap between yourself and the car in front of you is known as tailgating.
Tailgating can result in a rear-end crash; when it happens, the vehicle following is usually at fault.
Stopping Distances
For your driver’s license test, you should know about stopping distances and how speed, vehicle weight, and adverse conditions affect them. The DMV rarely asks for numbers, but you should know that stopping a vehicle takes much longer and further than many people think.
A stopping distance includes three concepts:
- perception distance
- reaction distance
- braking distance
Perception distance is the distance your car travels before you become aware of a hazard.
Reaction distance is how far you travel from being aware of danger until you react and hit the brakes or take evasive action.
Braking distance is the distance your car travels after you have hit the brakes.
Ideally, your following distance should match your stopping distance.
Compare your following distance with the distance you can see ahead when driving at night.
Remember that the faster you go, the longer your stopping distance.
Recommendations
Two seconds were the standard recommendation under normal driving conditions for a long time. Today, most experts agree that you should keep a distance of at least three seconds for everyday driving.
There are, however, many situations where a longer following distance is required. Fall back when road or weather conditions are bad, when it is dark or you cannot see clearly, and in unfamiliar areas. You must also fall back when following vehicles blocking your view ahead.
Keeping back when following motorcycles is also a good idea.
The Language Pitfall
On our practice tests, nearly one out of five (20%) answered DMV questions incorrectly when they encountered the words decrease and increase. It is a linguistic pitfall caused by misunderstanding the words or the concept.
Decrease is the same as “reducing something or making it smaller or shorter.” If you decrease your following distance, you shorten it, and you will end up closer to the vehicle in front of you. In case of a hazard, you may not be able to stop in time.
Increase is the opposite. It means “make larger or longer or more numerous or important.” An increased distance means a larger – and safer – gap between vehicles. See vocabulary.com
Giving yourself a space cushion and maintaining a better distance to vehicles ahead is the same as increasing your following distance.
Learn More
Practice Tests
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DMV should change form increase to following distance. Which is truly the right way not increase or decrease. Let’s be safe not 20 percent got it wrong. Why people I believe thy say like this (the pitfall) it shouldn’t be, make it right. Thank you
Increasing your following distance means getting closer to the car ahead of you right?
The opposite. In bad weather you should increase a following distance from 2-3 seconds to 4-5 seconds or even more. As the distance to the car ahead increases, your two vehicles will be farther away from each other.
When you decrease you following distance, you get closer.
Thanks for the heads up Earl. Or should I say the, “Tails up?”. Get it? ….. back of the vehicle?
Be careful on this question because at first glance you might select “decreasing” misinterpreting as decreasing “speed” which would increase your stopping distance.