Yes, and a three second following distance should be plenty of space to avoid the schrapnel.

I was on my way to work today, and fell in behind a moving truck as he entered the freeway. I was doing good following him at a 3 second interval and getting good mileage, untill he kept accelerating up past 70 MPH. I just don't care to drive that fast because even following the trucks at a safe distance, my mileage starts to drop over 70 MPH. Most of the trucks around my area seem to drive between 70 - 80 MPH, so following them is a bit hard unless you don't mind driving those speeds.

 

To keep things in perspective, human reaction times are generally in the 0.200 second range. So a 2-3 second following interval gives you 10-15 times that time to react and steer around or brake to avoid the problem.

Bob Wilson

 

Indeed! Keep some distance, or bring a sponge.

 

I don't know? Where can you drive and get out in front of dumb truckers and dumber commuters?

How fast do you go to get WAAAY out front?

 

I had the opportunity to follow a Rig yesterday on the way home from work. It was about 38 degrees, and a light rain. I was going about 65 MPH and I followed him for about 35 miles staying 2 - 3 seconds behind him.

I got a trip average of 40.2 MPG.

This is the best I have done in those conditions, usually I am more in the range of 37 MPG with that temp and rain.

I think one of the things that helped me was trying to stay in his "tire wipes" which helped to keep me from expending too much energy lifting water up off the road. The added benifit of less air drag was a help too, but at no time did I feel I was too close to the trucker, nor did he seem to care that I was back there.

 

We have a winner:
This is the best description to date of safe truck following practices. I'd forgotten about the 'pavement wipes.' One minor suggestion is to use Rain-X to help keeping the windshield clean but this is a good practice in all conditions.

Has anyone tried the Rain-X windshield wipers?

Bob Wilson

 

I have tried the Rain-X wipers and they were horrible

 

I do this fairly frequently and it works. If you are going to drive relatively slowly you are better off doing it with something huge and slow in front of you to attract attention. And this increasing and decreasing speed according to the terrain..."driving with the load"...is a very effective efficiency technique in any car. Worked wonders in my Accord, works even better in the Prius.

Blown tires from a safe following distance look a whole lot less threatening from the perspective of someone doing 60mph than that of someone doing 80mph with less time to find a way around it. I used to be the guy WAAY out in front of those whom I believed to be the idiots and I experience a lot less stress since I gave that up. I keep right, the idiots mostly keep left and fight amongst themselves...problem solved. I must admit that it did take me a while to figure this out.

 

On my recent trip from Columbus OH to Annapolis MD I experimented a little with following semis. I followed several different ones, so I got a variety of speeds tested. Though very unscientific, I found drafting as advantageous in the 70-75 mph range as driving w/o drafting in the 55-60 range. I was following this one quick truck in the 70-75 range for a couple miles, and I was actually in the 50-60 mpg range on the iFCD. My rpms were also only in the 2,000-2,500 range. I even had a good amount of space between us. I would have drafted him a lot longer, but the space was great enough some jerk decided to pull right in between us. The truck got away and I was not willing to go above 3,000 RPMs to catch up to him.

I am still on my first tank of gas (so nice!), so take my numbers with a grain of salt!!

Also, how would a truck let you know he doesn't want you behind him? Brake checking? Horn whistles? I just want to make sure I don't PO any truck drivers or get arrested!

 

Truckers let you know they don't like you there by pulling to the right side of the lane and then making a small left turn inside the lane so they can see you in there mirrors. They do this anyway but if they keep it up I back off. They also vary there speed, drive in the rumble strip, slow down, put there brakes on, speed up, etc. You get the point real quick, unless they are just bad drivers, then YOU don't want to be there. If they check to see if I'm there a couple times and then just drive steady, I'll take that as a sign they don't mind me being there.

I'll start out following faster trucks and as they pass slower ones, I'll follow the slower one until I find one that is going the speed I want.....Louis