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A schoolbus, stopping in front of a residential home, is rear ended by a full size truck (cdn.imgchest.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/crazyfuckingvideos@lemmy.world
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https://www.syracuse.com/news/2026/05/two-adults-and-4-children-injured-after-pickup-rear-ends-central-ny-school-bus.html

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[–] 2 points 5 months ago (5 children)

The definition of "following too closely" is relatively circular. You have proper following distance if you stop in time to avoid a collision. If you don't avoid a collision, you obviously didn't have enough following distance.
"The cars wouldn't have run into each other if they had been further apart" is basically them saying "driver wasn't dunk or impaired, no sign of mechanical failure, and no evidence they were distracted.
Driving into the back of a school bus is evidence that you at the very least should have been further back, assuming you did everything else by the book.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Yes, technically he was following too closely to account for the fact he was looking at his phone.

    If you are looking at your phone you should probably be leaving much more space between you and the vehicle in front due to the fact that your reaction time will be significantly delayed. So technically too close. If he wasn't on the phone it would have been proper following distance.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    In most drivers ed programs, they teach 4 second following distance. You pick a landmark, start counting when the car in front of you passes it, and you should count to at least 4 by the time your vehicle passes the same spot.

    Unfortunately I don't think it's actually a law in many places.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Yup, they taught me that rule of thumb too. It's not a specific law because the law says you must dive safely with appropriate following distance for road conditions, which can be longer than 4 seconds in bad weather.

    Like my state has:

    (1) The operator of a motor vehicle shall not follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent, having due regard for the speed of the vehicles and the traffic upon and the condition of the highway.

    It's both good and bad that there's no objective measure, depending on if you're the one getting a ticket for driving like an ass.

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