> Make sure your following distance is such that you have enough time to react to completely oblivious driving behavior from other drivers.

While I fully endorse this ideal, the reality of driving in high-traffic cities is that it's impossible. Every time you adjust to leave proper space, someone will come along and appropriate your safety buffer. When you slow again to allow enough space, the pattern repeats.

Tragedy of the driving commons. In such situations I just drive slightly under the distance I would normally keep, but then just back off those that do barge in.

I didn't say we should take these braking systems off the road, but I do think drivers need to adapt to their presence. Personally, I am happy my 2017 vehicle does not have it and the ones on the market will probably be much improved by the time I consider a replacement.

As others discussed throughout this thread, there are many situations where drivers violate the safe following distance rules. Aside from the lack of attention scenarios, I think many drivers take calculated risks to temporarily reduce their following distances while performing some other maneuver. They should incorporate this new idea of neurotic automatic-braking systems into this risk calculus, so they don't get caught in a situation they cannot handle.

While we have a mixture of different vintage cars (and drivers!), I am afraid we will remain living in interesting times...