You're Not Mario Andretti

Let's face it, neither you nor I are Mario Andretti.  This is a given.  Not to put words in his mouth, but I suspect that given a choice, Mario wouldn't drive on America's highways.  The race track is far safer.  When you are a race car driver you are racing with professionals, with professionally maintained cars, and the track is likewise maintained.  One can not say the same of the highways that we drive every day.

So, before I head out tomorrow on my usual commute, I wanted to get a couple of things off my chest.  This is a note for those of you (you know who you are) that drive like you are a professional racing car driver:

YOU ARE NOT.

Let me spell it out for you.  No racing car driver would tailgate on the highway while driving 75+ miles per hour (mph).  (Of course, you're not doing the speed limit are you?)  You don't have the reaction times that a pro has.  By this I mean the time it will take you to react to the driver ahead of you.  Math doesn't lie (unlike statistics), so let's work through a few numbers.  Ready?  In searching the net, I've seen reaction times vary, but how about we say 1 second for you to recognize that something is wrong and you need to brake.  One second for you to realize that there is a problem that requires you to brake and for your foot to go from the accelerator to the brake pedal.  In that one second at 75 mph (120 kph) you would have traveled 100 feet (33.5 m).  If we assume an average car length of 13 feet (4m), that's over 7 car lengths that you've traveled before your foot even touches the brake pedal!

So, now you can begin to slow down or stop.  According to an article by Edmunds, at 60 mph the time from foot onto the brake to a full stop can take around 4.6 seconds (and that's from perception to reaction time) with a resulting total of 270 feet in distance traveled.  That's twenty car lengths!  That doesn't take into consideration, the weather, road, and your tires.  You do properly maintain your brakes and tires, right?  Of course, these numbers go up as you travel faster.  Considerably.

Let me put a scenario to you.  Suppose a contractor is driving on the road ahead of you.  His load isn't as secured as we would like and a piece of lumber falls out of the truck.  Further suppose that it's a 4x4 piece of wood.  You are busy tailgating an SUV being driven by a distracted business person yakking on the phone and not really paying close attention to the road.  She doesn't see the block of wood in front of her and with the ground clearance that her truck has, well she can drive right over it.  (We won't even go into the situation of what might happen if she hit it with one of her wheels.)  Anyway, you can't see it cause you're driving to close to react.  (To be honest, you might not even be able to stop completely if you were following the 'three second rule.'  Though you would certainly not be going as fast.)  If you were driving an SUV you might straddle it.  Lucky you.  Suppose you don't have an SUV?  Suppose you hit it with a wheel?  What might happen?

With a bit of luck you might just damage some of the underparts of your car.  Though, there is the possibility you may ride up on the block and go out of control.  Not really cool at 75 mph.  Or, let's say that the road, tires, and brakes are good.  You are really concentrating on the road and slam on your brakes...and...get rear-ended by the slob who is tail-gating you.  Nice.

It would be nice if your own stupidity only effected you.  Physics and life don't work that way.