Back off Jack...

Yep, back off. You can't have too much space and having just enough isn't enough.

A couple recent crashes have me worked up. The number of lives lost due to senseless crashes is ridiculous. If everyone paid proper attention and left a little more space crashes would be rare. Fatalities extremely rare. Yet everyday more go to an early grave.

A few stats. Almost 1 in 3 people will be in a serious automobile accident in their lifetime. A little more than 1 in 100 will die prematurely in a crash. In a five year period 1 in 4 will be in a crash.

Most of us 'professional' drivers spend a lot more time driving than the average person so those odds of bad things happening also increase. The key to staying out of trouble is space IMO.

It doesn't matter how good you are, you can't control others. The more space, and therefore time, you have to react to the unexpected the better. Don't put yourself, or others, in a situation where you or they have to do anything sudden. If you leave yourself just enough space to stop if the person ahead of you does a panic stop you're relying on the fool tailgating you to be on the ball. Having enough space to slow it down gradually reduces the chance of the distracted driver behind you rearending you.

It also allows you time to react when you're distracted. But I don't get distracted you say! That's bull, we all do. I don't care how good you think you are, spend enough time driving and you will get distracted from time to time. If you're always trying to maintain whatever you think is the minimum following distance sooner or later that 1/2 second of distraction at the wrong time will bite you.

'But if I leave enough space someone will just cut in front of me and then I have to back off to get my space back at which time someone else will cut in front of me. Before you know it I'll be at a stand still'. I've heard that many times and I don't buy it. First off, you're driving a big truck. No matter how hard you try to prevent it someone is going to bet in front of you. Accept and respect the limitations of a large, heavy vehicle. The answer, leave a whole lot more space. Yeah, people will pull in front of you but so what? Have you never had to get into a different lane? Make it easy for them, not hard. It won't cost you any significant amount of time and it sure beats the alternative.

Pay attention to your surroundings of course. Most importantly though pay attention to what happening where you're going, not where you are. Look far ahead. It's scary how many don't see the cop on the shoulder or the lane ending until they're right on top of it. You have to know what's happening ahead if you want to be able to react to it without having to perform any sudden or drastic maneuvers.

It's hard to do that if you're concentrating intensely of maintaining your spot or if you can't see past the big truck you're tailgating. You can't have too much space.

The two recent crashed that got me on this rant both involve a big truck running into slow or stopped traffic. The details aren't all known but it seems that in one case the driver was likely distracted whereas in the other they may have simply been following too close and not knowing what was going on up ahead. The people they ran into were sitting ducks and for 7 people their last breath likely burned their lungs as their flesh melted.

So how you can avoid being a sitting duck? In some cases you can't. If traffic is heavy and there's a sudden slow down you should react early and slow as gradually as you can, thereby reducing the chance that the distracted driver somewhere behind you will realize too late what's going on.

But what if there's not much traffic and you come to the end of a line of stopped vehicles on the highway? First, as soon as you see it your 4 ways should come on. Soundthe alert on your CB, you do have one on don't you? Slow down early and don't rush to the end of the line. Stay far back until some traffic catches up to you and there's enough to insulate you from a big truck that doesn't see the stopped traffic. If you're going to get hit from behind it's better to be pushed forward into open space than to be sandwiched between two trucks.

Treat every mile like it's your first but always keep the big picture in mind. Getting where you're going a few minutes earlier today means nothing. Getting through the next mile, day, week, month and year safely it what matters.

If you feel rushed you're doing it wrong. If you often get frustrated while driving you're doing it wrong. If you have 'close calls' on a regular basis you're doing it wrong. If you're not relaxed behind the wheel you're doing it wrong. If you think sacrificing a few minutes to stay safe is silly you're doing it wrong.

Here's a video that will leave you wondering what the heck it has to do with this subject if you watch it. It's over an hour long with nothing to see so I'll tell you what you would see if you did watch it.

You'd realize pretty quickly that my dashcam needs a better mount, it's a bit shaky. You'd see a road that has lots of twists, turns and little hills. One of my favourite stretches of road. You would notice that there's very little traffic. In that hour plus of video I get passed by a pickup truck and both me and the pickup truck pass a truck that's slow on a hill. That's it for interaction with other traffic going the same direction.

You might notice there's 3 trucks a little ways ahead of me but what you won't realize is what was going on up there. I was behind them for about 2 and a half hours that day. They were pretty evenly matched but not quite. The one in the rear (most of the time) wanted to go faster but was a bit slower on the hills and couldn't get past the other two. He managed to pass a couple times only to get overtaken again at the next hill. For 150 minutes these three ran close together fighting to be first and there was basically no traffic. WTF is going through their heads? SMH I was getting a kick out of watching them.

I would describe that time as a leisurely drive with little traffic. I don't think those 3 would see it the same way. Now take that mentality and apply it to a high volume highway and that's what you're up against. If you do it right you can have a leisurely drive with lots of traffic, if you do it wrong you can have a stress filled drive even with little traffic.

Relax, don't rush, enjoy the drive and stay safe.