Correct, people are simply too dumb. They think the distance is fine, and it would be in the sense that “when I see the other car break, I too can break”. But then you need to break harder, because you started breaking later. And the car behind you then has to break even harder. Etc. Maybe you even avoid the crash, but the car(s) behind you do not. People severely overestimate their abilities and underestimate breaking distance.
They also don’t think about the situation when the vehicle in front spots something happening late (that they themselves can’t see because the closer you are, the less you can see around the sides of the vehicle in front) then swerves out of the way at the last moment, revealing it to following traffic with no time to react at all.
Correct, people are simply too dumb. They think the distance is fine, and it would be in the sense that “when I see the other car break, I too can break”. But then you need to break harder, because you started breaking later. And the car behind you then has to break even harder. Etc. Maybe you even avoid the crash, but the car(s) behind you do not. People severely overestimate their abilities and underestimate breaking distance.
They also don’t think about the situation when the vehicle in front spots something happening late (that they themselves can’t see because the closer you are, the less you can see around the sides of the vehicle in front) then swerves out of the way at the last moment, revealing it to following traffic with no time to react at all.