[RyanMcGreal]

I changed my driving patterns after first reading this remarkable essay some years ago. Now I follow what I affectionately call the "zen of driving", to wit: leave a huge gap in front of me, drive at a constant speed where possible [1], avoid using the brakes except in case of emergency, and so on.

On long driving trips through mixed traffic, I have made several observations, some obvious and some surprising:

* Driving in congestion is no longer stressful. It just isn't. (Hence the "zen".)

* Dramatically improved fuel economy.

* It's possible to drive through even wildly erratic traffic (swinging from 100 km/h to 20 km/h) without ever touching the brakes. It becomes a kind of game. Manual transmission helps.

* Some other drivers seem to figure out what I'm doing, and they fall into place behind me at a reasonable distance. I've had people follow me for hundreds of kilometres this way.

* Even though you'd assume leaving a huge gap in front is an invitation for other motorists to cut ahead, they rarely do - especially in congestion. If they do, I just let them race up to the front of the gap and then fall back by a single car length to restore the same gap.

I absolutely swear by this driving method. It's easier on the car, easier on the heart, and even serves to create a bubble of calm around you in an otherwise turbulent flow of traffic.

------

[1] Edit to qualify "drive at a constant speed". As I noted later, my speed ranges dramatically based on the congestion level - what remains more or less constant is the safe opening in front of me. Sorry for any confusion with my original choice of words.

[apotheon]

That's not "zen" -- it's artificial regularity. Zen would be driving at what feels like a natural speed, only adjusting that when circumstances dictate, and "letting go" of your attachment to forward progress when something stands in your way. Instead, you're driving at an artificially limited speed to try to regularize your driving experience. You're tricking yourself into feeling less frustrated by consciously eliminating frustration triggers from the driving experience; a zen approach would involve simply choosing to feel less frustrated by "realizing" that the frustration triggers really don't matter.

> Even though you'd assume leaving a huge gap in front is an invitation for other motorists to cut ahead, they rarely do - especially in congestion.

That's heavily dependent on time and place. I've lived in many different regions, and done a lot of driving in those areas. I've noticed that the tendency to fill in gaps is heavily dependent on local driving culture and the specific demographics on the road at a particular time of day.

> I absolutely swear by this driving method. It's easier on the car, easier on the heart, and even serves to create a bubble of calm around you in an otherwise turbulent flow of traffic.

That may, to some extent, be an illusion. Some people are infuriated by other drivers they perceive as holding them up -- which often includes people who are "wasting" lane space by letting a gap of thirty car lengths lie unused in front of them. Personally, I only get annoyed with such people when they try to keep other people from filling that gap, because as far as I'm concerned a steady gap (given a steady general traffic speed) creates irregularities in grouping through which ambient traffic can accelerate itself, but people who maintain a huge gap then rush to block out people who want to move into it are increasing the danger of driving and doing nothing to help improve the flow of traffic.

[RyanMcGreal]

>That's not "zen" -- it's artificial regularity.

Please see my edit in my original post to clarify what I meant to write. In fact my speed ranges up and down based on the level of congestion, whereas the safe buffer I maintain in front of me remains constant - and by safe I mean long enough that I don't have to use my brakes when traffic slows.

As for my use of "zen", don't read too much into it. It was just a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that I stopped trying to fight the flow of traffic and instead simply pass through it as peacefully as possible.

>That's heavily dependent on time and place.

My observations are limited to highways in Ontario, Quebec, New York State, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.

>I only get annoyed with such people when they try to keep other people from filling that gap

Hey, man, you're welcome to it. Blocking another driver from filling the gap would mean accelerating to close it, which kind of defeats the purpose of maintaining it.

[itistoday]

I'm a Zen Master, I have the degree to prove it. Your use of the term has been approved by the ZCUZ (Zen Committee On The Use Of "Zen").

[itistoday]

Children these days have no respect for Zen Masters.

[apotheon]

Is that self-referential?

[itistoday]

No, at least I certainly did not mean it to be. ;-)

The original comment, for those that don't get it yet, was a stab at apotheon's comment. It was an attempt to avoid the argument of "what is Zen" before it gets out of hand, as it's been known to do on other sites.

If you're curious, an example: http://zenhabits.net/2007/01/why-zen-habits/#comments

[kashif]

who is to say what zen is?

[apotheon]

It is much easier to identify what it is not than what it is. One could even cheat by claiming that anything is "not zen".

[bouncingsoul]

I did exactly what you described on a recent 12 hour car trip. I'm never tailgating again.

The main benefit for me, and one you don't mention, is safety. Knowing I have actual time to react in an emergency instead of being stuck with brake hard and pray I think really calms my subconscious.

[itistoday]

I'm constantly surprised by how few people have heard of the "3 second rule".

The rule is simple and works for any traveling speed: pick any arbitrary mark on the road, watch as the car in front of you passes it, and count 3 seconds. You want at the very minimum, 3 seconds to pass before you pass that same mark.

This not only has the advantages described by the OP (he's definitely following it, if not calling it by name), but one thing he didn't mention is that it can save your life.

Why do car "pile ups" exist? It's because someone was driving along just fine, when suddenly they come to a crashing hault (at 70+MPH), and all of the tailgators behind them are not physically capable of reacting to the situation in time. SMASH! You're fucked.

[amalcon]

Many people don't realize that, even if you can somehow stop instantaneously, you're much less likely to be hit from behind if you have time to gradually decelerate.

[pbhj]

"only a fool breaks the 3 second rule" (takes roughly 3s to say)

[RyanMcGreal]

Mr. T's Guide to Safe Driving

[pbhj]

Wouldn't that be "I pity the fool who breaks the two second rule"?

[Eliezer]

Except that this only gives you a linear amount of space with respect to your speed. You need space that goes as the square of the speed.

[eru]

Depends. For cancelling your reacting time you only need linear speed. And if the vehicle in front of you has the some breaking deceleration as you can achieve, that's fine.

[spyrosk]

I use this rule too with a slight modification. I always try to keep an older vehicle in front of me and a newer behind me, without overtaking anyone if possible, in order to take advantage of the different braking distances of each.

[redcap]

Of course, if it's wet weather, you'll want to increase that - say to a 4 second rule.

[kingnothing]

I was taught to leave 1 car length per 10 mph of speed, which probably has about the same effect. Either way, I've been driving for a decade and haven't hit anyone yet.

[pyre]

I remember being taught more like 7 seconds, but that might have been for freeway driving.

[netsp]

The point of counting seconds instead of distance is that it works at any speed. People tend to keep the longest (time) distance at suburban speeds.

7 seconds at highway speeds can be over 200 meters.

I'm all for safety, but that is excessive.

[Retric]

If you break faster than most other cars will often get rear ended, it's not just cushion for you but also the car behind you. Try to break from 70 on an empty road after 2 second reaction time and see how long it takes and how far your car travels, and then consider what would happen if someone was tailgating you at the time.

PS: Thinking you have a 2+ second reaction time helps to cover when you are not directly looking at the car ahead of you. The less of that cushion you have the more you need to focus on the car in front of you.

[albemuth]

There are a lot of driver douches which will always overtake whatever is overtakeable, driving like this makes you an easy 'target' and that gets me all worked up.

edit: spelling

[RyanMcGreal]

Except it doesn't. Like I said, I rarely experience drivers cutting in front of me.

[teej]

In what part of the US do you live? Having just completed a cross-country move, I can assure you that driving behaviors wildly vary from coast to coast.

[nonrecursive]

Yeah, come to Massachusetts and I'm sure you'll have an entirely different experience.

[nostrademons]

This varies dramatically depending on what highway you're on.

I've driven like the article suggests on Rt. 128 and it totally works. My lane ended up moving smoothly (albeit at a reduced speed; I still can't go any faster than the average speed of the cars in front of me), and nobody cut in front of me.

However, drivers on Rt. 2 are routinely crazy. There've been times I've been going about 70 in a 45 zone, with a guy on my tail, then he'll pop out from behind me, pass me at about 90 mph, cut right in front, and then tailgate the person in front of me until he does the same stunt. Luckily traffic on Rt. 2 is light enough that this doesn't cause many jams, but it does cause its fair share of accidents.

Then there's the Rt. 2/3/16 intersection by Alewife, where it is customary for about 5-10 cars to run the red light before somebody finally stops.

[masomenos]

I generally follow the stated driving pattern on 95, and it works just fine.

[RyanMcGreal]

My observations are limited to highways in Ontario, Quebec, New York State, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.

[pyre]

I've seen some pretty crazy driving in Ontario on the 401 and the QEW. Especially driving in downtown Toronto on the Gardiner. I used to commute Toronto -> Niagara Falls for work, and I saw people do some pretty stupid stuff (people driving at freeway speeds @ 5am, pitch black with so much snow on the freeway that you can't see the pavement at all, and multiple spin-outs along the way).

[RyanMcGreal]

The worst drivers I've seen in my life have all been on 400 series highways.

I figure if my method can work here, it can work anywhere. :)

[pbhj]

Where do you drive?

I tend to leave about twice the gap of other vehicles on the motorway, still strictly not the full stopping distance (but having been a motorcyclist I feel I read ahead well). I always find that people invade my stopping/slowing space; then one drops back and another car is in there.

I'm in the UK.

[radu_floricica]

I accidentally get a similar effect when I try to drive a patch of road with the car in neutral. It's a very non-intuitive experience: from the engine sound I'd think I'm slowing down considerably, but from looking at the numbers I stay at pretty much the same speed for a looong time.

When I do this before stoplights I sometimes catch a green light with road to spare, and I'm able to avoid stopping at all. This helps me somewhat, but as a side effect it helps the traffic behind me a lot more.

I'll try to do this more often. Keeping in neutral is easier then trying to compute an optimum speed, and it'll help a lot with the consumption too.

[RyanMcGreal]

IANAM (I am not a mechanic) but I've heard that it's bad for an automatic transmission to coast in neutral. Apparently the transmission isn't being lubricated in neutral, there's a risk of overheating, and it can be damaging to shift back into drive at high speeds.

In any case, you're not really saving any gas over coasting in drive or, alternately, setting the cruise control.

[radu_floricica]

I don't know about automatic transmission. As for the fuel economy, I find it's easier to slow this way without really trying. Just put in in neutral when you see a red light. Of course it's only for before intersections/blockages, not on the highway.

[murrayb]

I've been doing the same thing for some time now as well. As well as what you have observed I have observed that you really can actually hack the traffic to reduce congestion. I've seen a gap that I brought to a merge point allow 8-9 cars to move and several hundred meters of stationary traffic was able to pick up speed enough to merge, I could see both lanes continue to flow in my review mirror.

Instead of competing to get ahead the game has changed to strategising to keep the traffic moving. It's beautiful and fun and transforms the whole driving experience, very zen.

[losvedir]

"I could see both lanes continue to flow in my review mirror."

Heh, you didn't happen to learn to drive in, say, Massachusetts did you? It's called the "rear view mirror", but I've found that due to the accent, many people here in Boston have always thought it was the "review mirror".

[mattmcknight]

I started rolling like that when I got the Prius. You get some nice positive visual feedback when your instantaneous mileage maxes out.

[qeorge]

Absolutely. I've tried to impart this to others, but the inescapable response is "someone will jump into the gap." If they would just try it..

I picked it up from truckers, who uniformly take this strategy.

[camtarn]

There seems to be a difference in trucker culture between the US and UK - truckers in the UK don't seem to practise this technique.

While there are some courteous and sensible UK truckers, most of them seem to be driving right up against their speed limiters, and will tailgate then overtake anyone in front who dares travel 1mph slower than them - even if this involves attempting to overtake while going uphill, causing a wall of congestion on an otherwise free-flowing motorway.

[netsp]

Not only does a manual transmission help, but it kind of pushes everyone into that kind of driving. Maybe it's just because you don't need brakes as much. When I drive an auto (usually rental), I find I'm a lot more aggressive.

I also fond that places with a higher percentage of auto drivers are heavier on the heavy traffic scooch-and-brake.

[eru]

In Germany manual transmissions are the norm. I heard people drive more aggressively than in the US. Might be a cultural thing, though.

[netsp]

It's not a straight conversion to aggression. Germans, I believe, drive fast. Maybe aggressively too. But, if you put them in an auto, they also pick up the behaviour of building speed fast for 1-2 seconds then braking hard. It happens a lot in dense, halting traffic. It's not the only way of being aggressive, but it's another way

People don't do that in a manual because it's not fun.

*In Italy people drive mostly manuals. They also drive like suicidal grandmas in fast forward.

[devin]

All good points, but one that is even more important while careening down a concrete road at 60mph: safety. By traveling at a slower speed and not changing lanes you are drastically reducing the odds of getting into an accident.

[charliepark]

This is almost exactly my approach. For a while, I was working on a web page to share the heuristic I'd worked out for it, but I ultimately figured it wasn't worth the time. Since it's relevant to this thread, here's my heuristic:

1. Are you driving faster than the speed limit? Coast. If not … 2. Can you see more brake lights (that is, cars with brake lights on) ahead of you than the number of lanes traveling in your direction? Coast. If there are more lanes than cars with brake lights … 3. Is the buffer between your car and the car in front of you getting smaller / staying the same? Coast. If the distance is getting larger, you can accelerate.

So, essentially, the only time you get to accelerate is when you're below the speed limit, there aren't many cars braking in front of you (in any lane), and the gap in front of you is getting larger.

And here (below this) was the copy I'd worked up for the page. I was calling the approach "coasty," and was applying some game design theory to it, so if there are any "game" references in the copy below, that's what they're referencing.

========

The goal of Coasty is to consume less gas, to drive more safely, to get to your destination in about the same amount of time as you would otherwise, and to have more fun while driving.

Consume Less Gas:

Almost every time you brake, you’re wasting gas. You had to use gas to accelerate your vehicle, and you’re now intentionally slowing the car down. You’ll then need to accelerate again, to get back up to speed. You're doing twice the work, for the same amount of output. By braking less often, you end up accelerating less often, getting more miles-per-gallon and saving money (both in gasoline and engine wear). (Obviously, if you’re braking because of a stoplight / stop sign, this doesn’t apply.)

Drive More Safely:

When you're driving aggressively, driving closely to the car in front of you, and focusing on getting where you’re going as quickly as possible, the more likely you are to get in an accident. The amount of space and time you have to make a decision (and execute it) is determined by the amount of space your car has in front of you, and the speed at which you’re traveling. It’s counter-intuitive, but by focusing on braking-and-accelerating as little as possible (and by coasting as much as possible), you end up with a larger buffer in front of you, and you generally enter that buffer at a slower speed.

Get To Your Destination In About The Same Amount of Time:

It’s not fun to be late. And — let’s be honest — you probably aren’t going to stick with a new approach to driving if it compromises your ability to get somewhere on time. But with this approach, you’re reaching each “micro destination” (that spot further down the highway, that exit ramp, that streetlight) only a few seconds behind where you’d be otherwise. In some cases, you'll get there even faster, as you might end up approaching a stoplight while coasting, as it turns green, rather than approaching it, stopping, waiting, and then accelerating again from a stop, while the guy in the lane next to you cruises through at 10 miles an hour.

Have More Fun While Driving:

This approach actually makes driving fun, as the goal shifts away from “getting where I’m going as fast as I can and who do these jerks think they are, getting in my way?!?!” to one of a game mindset, where you’re trying to follow the rules, seeing how far you can go without braking, and seeing how much your fellow drivers have to speed up and slow down while you’re coasting along.

As a side benefit, creating a larger buffer and then eating it up enables the cars behind you to have a smoother trip at a more constant speed, where they aren’t having to brake as much, either, and dissolves the slow-down-then-speed-up-then-slow-down-again rubber-band traffic cycle.

[apotheon]

You must not drive much in places where the effective speed limit is higher than the posted speed limit -- which, in my experience, is almost everywhere. If you drive the speed limit or less in other than heavy, slower than usual traffic, you get tailgated and cut off regularly, and actually contribute to traffic snarls by introducing additional variances in the flow of traffic.

[aaronblohowiak]

Dad called it "cruising."

[username]

The government calls it "speed limit."