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Tailgating is the habit that most annoys drivers in the UK, according to a survey of over 14,500 motorists released today as part of a new Autocar/AA campaign aimed at improving the standard of driving on Britain’s roads.

In total 36 per cent of respondents picked tailgating over talking on a mobile phone while driving (23 per cent), and middle lane hogging (18 per cent). Just four per cent of respondents said speeding was the most irritating habit.

Read the full article

Were the respondents retired 70 something year olds, tree-hugging hyper milers or "wannabe" police officers?

Look at the root cause of tailgating - the majority is due to driver frustration.  I'm not condoning it but this bad habit needs to be looked at in more detail than just treating the symptom.  Driver education should go into eliminating lane hogging and driving at "common sensical" speeds.  Drive at 55mph in a 60mph country road to see how many extra mpg's you can get while at the same time building up a queue behind you will generate tailgating.  And stomping on the brakes on the motorway is not conducive to reducing tailgating, merely exacerbating the situation...

Everybody will have a habit they hate most and for me it's the recent increase in texting while driving. I've nearly been wiped out twice now by texting drivers and just yesterday saw a lorry driver doing 30 mph (70 limit) down the A34 in Oxfordshire while texting.

Tailgating would be a close second. The only way to reduce these problems is to actually have traffic police on the roads again.

Greg1:

Drive at 55mph in a 60mph country road to see how many extra mpg's you can get while at the same time building up a queue behind you will generate tailgating. 

 

You must be very lucky to have big straight country roads around you.  Most of the country roads near me just aren't safely driven much above 50mph due to the blind bends/summits etc, especially in the summer when cyclists and runners are abundent.

Greg1:

Drive at 55mph in a 60mph country road to see how many extra mpg's you can get while at the same time building up a queue behind you will generate tailgating. 

 

I seem to get stuck behind people doing 40 in a 60 so often that if I find somebody doing as much as 55 it's a relief!

Greg1:

Were the respondents retired 70 something year olds, tree-hugging hyper milers or "wannabe" police officers?

Look at the root cause of tailgating - the majority is due to driver frustration.  I'm not condoning it but this bad habit needs to be looked at in more detail than just treating the symptom.  Driver education should go into eliminating lane hogging and driving at "common sensical" speeds.  Drive at 55mph in a 60mph country road to see how many extra mpg's you can get while at the same time building up a queue behind you will generate tailgating.  And stomping on the brakes on the motorway is not conducive to reducing tailgating, merely exacerbating the situation...

I don't agree Greg mate.  I have been tailgated many times while over the speed limits so why would the driver be frustrated and continue tailgating?  While I dont stomp on the brake I will gladly slow down to the limit as I dont want to be killed in a accident due to some impatient driver.  Also, i think 55mph is perfectly resonable in a 60mph zone. 

memyselfandi:

memyselfandi wrote the following post at Jul 22, 2009 4:09 PM:

Greg1:

Drive at 55mph in a 60mph country road to see how many extra mpg's you can get while at the same time building up a queue behind you will generate tailgating. 

 

You must be very lucky to have big straight country roads around you.  Most of the country roads near me just aren't safely driven much above 50mph due to the blind bends/summits etc, especially in the summer when cyclists and runners are abundent.

Totally agree.  I live in 'the country' and am sick of imbeciles who believe that because the legal limit is 60, then 60 is the minimum acceptable speed for that road.

The fact is 60 is an extremely dangerous speed for many country roads.  I am in no way a 'slow' driver and routinely find myself shouting at my windscreen when trapped behind someone in a hat doing 38mph on a wide open country road, however I would like to think I have sufficient self-control to limit myself to shouting at the windscreen rather than doing something stupid or dangerous - and I don't think it unreasonable to expect the same of everyone else on the road.  If a person lacks sufficient self-control to cope with someone doing 55 in a 60 limit without resorting to dangerous driving, I would seriously question their fitness to be behind the wheel.  It is the 60-or-nothing merchants who have put the rest of us at risk of an unnecessary blanket reduction in the national speed limit. 

There is no excuse or mitigation for tailgating.  More police to identify and address genuinely dangerous driving, fewer idiot cameras please - and I would also support anything designed to toughen up the driving test, or indeed retest drivers periodically.  A driving licence is a privilege to be used responsibly - not a right. 

 

Autocar:

“This survey shows that British motorists want something to be done about the poor driving we see everyday on the country’s roads,” said Autocar editor Chas Hallett.

"We want the driving test to include motorway driving and lane discipline. Too many new drivers pass their test without ever having driven on a motorway and it shows in the lack of awareness obvious on the UK’s roads.

 

 

I am sorry  as far as i am conserned ALL drivers pass their tests without having driven on a motorway!!! as learner drivers are NOT ALLOWED on motorways at all!!!

Come on Autocar, this is a fairly stupid slip up! 

Greg1:

Look at the root cause of tailgating - the majority is due to driver frustration.

Really?

Maybe in the rare cases where a driver really is proceeding too slow for conditions but IME 95+% of the time it's just lazy driving.  Fixate on bumper of car in front and switch off.

I have on a few occasions (when it's quiet enough to do so) been driving along at a sufficiently swift speed in the roadster only to, upon traversing a tight bend or clear roundabout, hear an almighty screech and scrabble of tyres from behind as a driver in switch-off mode attempts the same speed.  What were they frustrated with there?  Did they want to understeer off the road even more violently or something?

It's actually curtailed my enjoyment of some more spirited journeys as I don't want to be responsible for an accident where someone is trying to tailgate my car way beyond the abilities of their own to keep up, so I have to slow down.

I let such people past when I can (which is in itself frustrating as you can be driving almost in the gutter with several hundred yards of clear, wide, arrow-straight Roman road ahead and the tailgater still won't overtake) but for most of them it's a futile exercise - you have to actually pull off the road before they'll pass and then they'll end up bumbling along at 42mph despite having tailgated you all the way while you did 60 on a NSL single carriageway, thus now holding you up.

My basic assessment of tailgaters now is that they're not confident or competent drivers and I need to look after them.  More accurate and less stressful.  It's annoying as it removes some of the things I can do if I'm only driving for myself (aforementioned higher cornering speeds, and particularly using the acceleration of my cars to get smartly out of a side road into a smallish gap - with a bumper-fixater, they're guaranteed to follow without looking and realise too late that I've taken off into a gap only big enough for one car) but such is life, you don't get anywhere on the roads all trying to antagonise each other.

Ultramagnus:

I don't agree Greg mate.  I have been tailgated many times while over the speed limits so why would the driver be frustrated and continue tailgating?  While I dont stomp on the brake I will gladly slow down to the limit as I dont want to be killed in a accident due to some impatient driver.  Also, i think 55mph is perfectly resonable in a 60mph zone. 

I agree and I too have had vehicles fairly close while driving briskly - however, although close, more often they're not so close as to be defined as tailgating (i.e. you can see the colour of the tailgater's eyes!).

Regarding slowing down to the limit - If you have someone that is deemed to be so close it's dangerous I don't see how you are less likely to be killed by reducing your speed by 10-15mph (unless in a 30 or 40mph of course).  I know the laws of physics can be quoted but Murphy's law can be quoted too.  I would rather pull over when it's safe and let the hooligan go by.

The term used is wrong, if someone causes a block on a road, whether driving slower than the flow or driving in one of overtaking lanes on motorways and dual carriageways while not actually overtaking. They are actually ‘hogging’ the road, and being inconsiderate to the people behind them.

 

If drivers build up a tail behind them they are ‘Road Hogs’, consideration towards other driver cost nothing. Remembering of course in some other countries if you have more than a certain number of drivers behind you, you will receive a penalty for being inconsiderate.

 

Some of the problem comes from the idea that our motorways have slow and fast lanes, they don’t – just a nearside lane and overtaking lanes.

 

 

Timberwolf:

Maybe in the rare cases where a driver really is proceeding too slow for conditions but IME 95+% of the time it's just lazy driving.  Fixate on bumper of car in front and switch off.

Timberwolf - you must have a nice roadster as it sounds like some people want to follow you so they can admire your car rather than tailgate to get past (memories of me trying to follow a test mule 360 on a roundabout in Maranello with a rental Punto come flooding back!).

Not sure that tailgating comes with lazy driving and switching off though - maybe there's some research here (and even some reality TV shows), but I dare say that someone tailgating will be in a heightened state of stress, increased adrenalin, etc.  A tailgater who sits just a few meters behind you would be more alert than someone having 100m plus between them and the car in front