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A comment on The Mercedes Robo-Car That Made Me Want to Stop Driving. Parent comment

Re:The Mercedes Robo-Car That Made Me Want to Stop Driving by leohutson on Monday March 30, 2015 @04:37AM (#9288293)
It's not about the performance of the car that your driving, but about giving you enough time to react. In theory, if your car and the car you were following had same stopping distance, and you could react instantaneously, then you could drive bumper to bumper without incident.

Even with anti lock brakes, the car in front of you probably has them too, so you still have the same time to react as you always did.

Pile-ups still happen pretty frequently, and they could be avoided completely if people were following at a safe distance, and were alert.

You could definitely argue that autonomous cars should be able to follow closer than human operated ones, and I'd buy that.

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Re:The Mercedes Robo-Car That Made Me Want to Stop Driving by m_mueller on Monday March 30, 2015 @05:05AM (#9288417)
I agree with everything you wrote. My post was meant to be a reaction to GP's post that implied tailgating to be equal with driving in a way that minifies cars cutting in front of you. I maintain that there is a sweet spot that is both safe as long as you're alert as well as keeps the traffic around you in sort of a steady state where everyone can just keep following. If you let the gap become larger, others will start cutting in - if you then have to use the breaks you basically rely on the guy behind you doing the right thing as well, thus increasing the risk of accidents.
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