The Highways Agency has commissioned a scoping study to identify possible technological solutions to the problem of tailgating (Transport Network).
The transport consultants Arup/URS will lead the study, with support from the not-for-profit group Road Safety Support (RSS). Intelligent transport solutions (ITS) equipment manufacturers will be invited to contribute their views to the study.
In a survey conducted earlier this year by Brake, 57% of the drivers interviewed admitted to tailgating on motorways. However, 95% of respondents also said they are “at least occasionally concerned about vehicles too close behind them”; and 44% said they are concerned “every, or most, times they drive on a motorway”.
Trevor Hall, managing director of RSS, said the study would investigate possible methods of enforcement against tailgating, test equipment that could be used to warn drivers, and advise on the need for any new legislation. He expected it to report by summer 2015, and be followed by invitations to tender for preferred solutions.
Gary Crockford, from the DfT, is quoted by Transport Network as saying there would need to be a ‘specific offence’ of tailgating.
The other day I was on the M6 motorway at Preston which is undertaking road works and therefore the lanes are narrower and there is a speed limit of 50 mph. First may I say that the vast majority of drivers when entering this few miles do reduce speed to that limit which is a great thing to be able to say. Three lanes all doing the same speed.
But, and it’s a big but, why oh why do they then close up and tailgate all the way through it? I had a HGV not more than 5ft from my rear end. That was very intimidating, until I had had enough and moved lanes and then I got tailgated by a car behind by only 30ft. There is no need but it goes to show the lack of knowledge that drivers have. More should be done for road safety and fewer incidents would arise by informing drivers of what is a safe or safer distance to drive behind the vehicle in front.
It’s not just about speed. Even at 20mph if the vehicle behind is too close incidents will still happen and I believe will become more prevalent with that slower speed as people will give less distance.
bob craven Lancs
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“only lane-huggers are tailgated?” On ordinary roads there is no alternative but to stay in the one available lane. On busy dual carriageways or motorways, it is unreasonable to expect anyone in an outside lane but unable to pass the cars in front, to move to the left and so lose his place in the queue to the tailgater behind. And again and again and again. I have never believed in giving in to bullies. And very often there is no traffic-free lane on the nearside, unless one wants to create unecessary danger for everyone by popping in and out of short gaps between HGV’s.
Jeremy is right except in one point – the prospect of automated enforcement and penalties – far better to run a campaign and put patrol cars back on our roads.
Idris Francis Fight Back With Facts Petersfield
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I think Idris’ contribution here is useful in explaining why Duncan’s earlier, apparently frustrated, reply is a little naive. The game playing described by Idris’ Range Rover is not uncommon. Nor is game playing on the highway in general uncommon. In fact for an environment that is almost entirely devoid of verbal communication we have adapted to become astonishingly adept at inventing game-based activities that require the involvement of others; communicating the rules to perfect strangers and then persuading them to become involved. If the outcomes weren’t so often life changing I’d be forced to admit it’s really quite impressive. What’s observed here is that driving behaviour often has nothing to do with the business of transportation or the driving ‘task’ and certainly not with feelings of personal safety.
Ask a thousand people ‘why they follow too closely’ and you’ll get several hundred answers – only a proportion of which will be rational, predicable and treatable. The highway broadly functions as well as it does not because of the users’ rationale, predictable and conscious behaviours but rather despite the lack of them.
There is no one discoverable reason why people tailgate – and feelings of safety are not the basis of all behaviours.
So if you have an environment in which actions are often predicated on randomised, unpredictable and individualistic behaviours then it’s not outrageous to try to intervene (when necessary) with something that can be common to all underlying causes. In this case, enforcement may be one perfectly reasonable response – ideally coupled with an opportunity to help the motorist understand the possible consequences of their actions. Whatever the cause.
Jeremy, Devon
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Not surprisingly Trevor Hall of RSS talks about possible methods of enforcement, when his company stands to open another revenue stream from it!
Personally I do not get tailgated very often, perhaps because I just drive on the lane that is traffic free on my nearside; it is that simple. As a generalisation only lane huggers get tail-gated. With hard should running becoming the norm, it now means that these selfish drivers can drive along motorways with two traffic free (in a motorway context) lanes on their inside instead of one!
Terry Hudson, Kent
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Yes Hugh, I chose the word “pursuers” deliberately. One example – I refused to give way to a Land Rover that pulled alongside me in the right turn lane and then tried to cut across my bows into the single ahead lane between two posts. I refused politely – one toot of my horn to tell him to desist. He then tailgated me in a black windowed Range Rover, followed me into the private road of a Health Centre I happened to know, and around its roundabout again to come out. I was fortunate to time the next lights to get through on the amber, he didn’t – and got away. When I am tailgated in traffic and there is nowhere to pull over, I slow down gradually and then accelerate to make space – usually 3 or 4 times before they get the message or I pull into a lay-by – and on one occasion, straight out again when he followed me. Police advice – never stop, never get blocked in, lock doors and raise windows, flash headlights and sound horn continuously, switch on hazard warning lights and head for a police station that is open (!) or a petrol station that is always well lit and has an attendant with a telephone and the police number.
Incidentally, I never obstruct anyone deliberately, even at the speed limit. As a Court verdict involving Enoch Powell declared 30 years ago, drivers should not try to impose speed limits in that way.
Idris Francis Fight Back With Facts Petersfield
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You will have a problem with anything automated to enable one to keep a safe distance. I presume that it will have to automatically slow a vehicle down. At a mere 30 mph one would need 90ft or 7 car lengths approx. That’s a lot of distance between vehicles but achievable however in inclement weather (there must be reset/adjust) and then one should be up to 4 times that distance ie 360ft away and that’s not going to happen.
Nobody knows more than motorcyclists just how dangerous other vehicles can be when too close and I would love other vehicles to give greater distance but all we can hope for is some form of intervention which would create a greater distance, be it not exactly the distance that is safe but one which is safer.
Even at 70 mph on a motorway the distance should be 110 yards and in the wet 4 times that distance. With the volumes of traffic on some roads it’s just not going to happen. It would not be physically possible.
bob craven Lancs
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Derek:
What you suggest already exists. It’s called adaptive (or autonomous) cruise control. It’s usually an option on more expensive new cars. Give it ten years and my guess is we’ll all have it. Sensors on the car are very useful, when the sensors in the brain are not working as they should 🙂
Martin, Suffolk
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I would have thought the simplest solution to tailgating would be to install a proximity sensor (such as are installed in some cars for parking) at the front of the vehicle. When connected to a speedometer electronically, it would sense the required distance from the vehicle in front for an acceptable braking distance – both wet and dry. This coupled to an audio alert increasing in intensity with the closer proximity for any speed. Some might consider a connect to the throttle or braking mechanism, but this may affect a certain amount of desire over-ride in some situations, and cause more problems than it might attempt to solve.
Tailgating is most prominent on motorway road works where SPECS cameras are installed. Leave enough space, and someone will move into it. You slow down to re-create your safe distance, and the event re-occurs ad infinitum.
Derek Reynolds, Salop.
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This week I attended the Motorcycle Safety Seminar and travelled 450 miles, about 400 on motorways and the other 50 miles on A roads. I pulled in about 4 times on the A road to enable tailgaters who wanted to travel faster than me to overtake and off they shot..to annoy someone else. Even though I was driving to the maximum limit on that road.
On the Motorways I am always tailgated. I don’t know why I am, just a magnet I suppose. Sometimes I am under the limit say 60/65 and at other times I am keeping up with traffic in the middle and outside lane so basically like the rest over the speed limit. Most times (90% +) I distance myself a marker post away from the vehicle in front (that’s 100 mtrs) but still am tailgated at whatever speed I do. I just believe that drivers know no different and have no idea of what a safe distance is. After all no one has instructed them on Motorway Driving. They know no different.
bob craven Lancs
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I suspect we may be witnessing the build-up to a new enforcement camera designed to automatically prosecute the public. Is the plan to define a legal minimum distance (dependent on speed) in order that a new camera network can be installed? Following current policies, will this be financed via profits made from courses which citizens might attend to avert a threat of prosecution?
Dave Finney, Slough
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Thanks Idris. As it happens, tailgating and speeding are both equally the bane of my driving life as well and no doubt many others’ and yes, I know it happens at slow speeds as well.
“Cameras also make it more difficult for drivers being harried to get away from their pursuers”, “pursuers” Idris? … been watching some car chase movies lately by any chance?
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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The sooner someone does something about tailgating, the bane of my driving life the better, even though (Hugh) it happens just as much at speeds below limits as above.
It is also worth noting that speed cameras result in more tailgating than before, as drivers not worried about cameras harry drivers who are. Cameras also make it more difficult for drivers being harried to get away from their pursuers, whose stopping distances are clearly much lower than they think.
Idris Francis Fight Back With Facts Petersfield
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I think some actually get a kick out of tailgating and intimidating others – the ‘kick’ would seem to blind them to the risk. As for most if not all of the remainder, I’m not convinced their thinking process actually extends to ‘this is a safe stopping distance’- it’s more a case of following the vehicle in front on auto-pilot.
If the ‘study’ succeeds in getting to the bottom of why people tailgate (good luck with that), I think they will have got to the bottom of a lot of other undesirable road behaviour – but I’m not too optimistic.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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How is it possible to solve a problem when you don’t actually know what the cause of the problem is in the first place? Is anybody in this well funded little group ever going to ask why people follow too closely or are they just going to come up with interesting ways of punishing them for doing so?
If tailgating is such a problem surely we would want to know why people feel quite safe when they do it (if they didn’t they wouldn’t) or what mechanisms people actually use to determine a safe following distance? Only when you know how and why people do what they do can you go about changing things not before.
Duncan MacKillop, Startford on Avon
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Tailgating is what a speeder does when there’s a vehicle holding him/her up. Specific action on this is long overdue, although I would have thought from an enforcement point of view, although not a specific offence, it’s already actionable under one or more existing offences. Camera vans can collect the evidence, but I wonder whether any action on this behaviour is ever taken by the camera partnerships.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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