JW 42 - The Three-Second Rule Explained
This just might save your life, so read this carefully!
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Welcome to Another one of my little newsletters. This one is actually slightly off the subject. Normally we're talking about recovery issues or, the getting-on-living part of, recovery after, alcohol and drugs are no longer an issue. But this time it's totally different. I had a, Client I was talking to who had some problems with driving and had almost gotten in an accident and it reminded me of the one useful fact that I learned the one time that I went to driving school.
Of course, I had no reason to go to driving school, but I went. I did. And the one thing I got out of it that has saved me on more than one occasion was what they called the three-second rule. Now, when I first took driver's ed, back in ancient times, truthfully, I have been driving now since I was 16 and I'm 82, so you do the math.
When I took driver ed, they talked about being, following the car in front of you no closer than it was either two or three car lengths. In driving school, they said that's really not a very good gauge because the whole reason for having distance between you and the car in front of you is so that if that car should stop short.
You have enough time to stop and the truth is that it can't be measured in car lengths because the faster you go, the longer it's going to take to stop that thousands and thousands of pounds of metal that you're traveling in. So. The rule they came up with is the three-second rule, which means that you need to be three seconds behind the car in front of you.
So, three seconds at 30 miles an hour. Might be 100 feet, three, or four car lengths, three seconds at 70 miles an hour, and could possibly be a block away from the car in front of you. So, I learned this lesson, and I actually was on, in, I'm in California, so I was on the 710 freeway, and, I was just practicing, and the way to do this, by the way, is if it's in the daytime, the easiest way is when the car in front of you goes under an overpass, the shadow from the overpass is going hit over his windshield or his back windshield.
And when that happens, start counting. Now, three seconds, the easiest way is 1001, 1002, 1003. Depending on how fast you go, that's probably just slightly over three seconds. But it's, it will work. So, shadow, 1001, 1002, 1003. At that point, It should go, the shadow should be on my windshield. If I beat the shadow, that means I'm too close.
Is that right? Anyway, the shadow shouldn't come until I've gotten past 1, 003. I was practicing this, and I was keeping my distance, and if you've ever driven freeways or highways or a New York called Parkways every once in a while, the traffic stops short. Wham! From 70 miles an hour to a dead stop and that happened, and because I had the proper distance started slowing down and looked at my rearview mirror and turned out that the car behind me was way too close and was really approaching at a speed where he was going to hit me, but I still had time because I had enough distance that I could step on the gas and get out of that fool's way and then still had time to brake and not hit the car in front of me.
And the guy behind me just touched my bumper as we came to a stop. And that convinced me that that's a damn good practice. And every once in a while, that's what I do. Every once in a while, just to check myself, I go and do that 1001, 1002, 1003, and see if I'm actually the correct distance. If you've been driving as long as I have, you're automatically going to be keeping a good distance, but it's good every once in a while just to do a check.
By the way, it occurred to me when I was thinking of presenting this, that long before I started to drive, I was driving with my father. I was a passenger, and this is on a New York Long Island Parkway. And every time somebody cut in front of him, he'd let them cut in front of him. And my [00:07:00] brother and I were starting to needle him on, you know, "Why do you let the guy get in front of you?"
And he gave me a good lesson. He said, first of all, this isn't a race. Second, he was an engineer, a mechanical engineer, and calculated things. And he said that he actually did a study once where he measured the time it took him to get from our house to a place in New York City where we normally went.
And, he measured the time when he didn't let anybody cut in front of him and then the time when every time somebody wanted to pass him and get in front of him, he let him and he backed off a little bit. Over a 25-mile distance, the difference in time was like two or three minutes. So he said, for safety reasons, ( and this is long before anyone did any of this) if somebody wanted to pass and want to get in front of him, he let him and he backed off a little bit. And, the difference in total time was very, very little. And yet he was safer. So. The concept was around long before they came up with the three-second rule, which was long before they came up with three or four car lengths, or whatever they used to say.
And so that's it. And I hope this will keep you from getting in an accident. So please, every once in a while, just check when the shadow hits the car in front of you. Go 1001, 1002, 1003, and the shadow ought not hit your windshield until after you get through 1003. If it does, back off. Now, a friend of mine says that his Tesla drives itself and keeps its own distance.
It would be interesting to check what distance it automatically maintains based on speed. So, if you're in a self-driving car, I would check it sometime: do 1001, 1002, 1003, and see if it actually gives enough distance so that it doesn't have to slam on the brakes.
I hope this was helpful. Have a wonderful week, and that's it. Bye bye.
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