The Country Lawyers take on ‘Tailgating’

If tailgating involves your favorite team, a cold one and grilled anything, it’s a good thing. If it involves driving, its bad. Tailgating, by definition, not only makes you a jerk, but a real threat to the person in front of you. You won’t be able to stop if any number of things happen that cause a sudden stop. Add distraction and it’s worse.

What about the joker tailgating you? My rule of thumb? I don’t worry about motorcycles (unless I’m on one too) but I get vigilant with cars and down right paranoid about trucks.

In truck driving school they taught us 1 second separation for every 10 feet of length over 40 miles an hour. At 65 miles an hour you are traveling over 90 feet per second so you’re talking 5, 6, 7 seconds of separation. 600-700 feet. That’s 2 full lengths of a football field that should separate a truck and the vehicle in front of them!

I thought, no way, nobody does that. Then we got in the trucks, got up to speed and practiced stopping. It got my attention. It takes a long distance to stop and you’re driving a steel battering ram. On one thing I was right though, a lot of trucks tailgate. I look for a way out especially in heavy traffic. What do you do?