Driving? Reduce Stress, Risk, & Consumption by 'Chucking Out Some Bananas'

There is a very troubling trend among drivers, everywhere that there are impatient or uneducated drivers, this is a problem. Tailgating or having too short a following distance to safely avoid a collision in an emergency braking situation is unfortunately the norm BUT! YOU don't have to follow trends, I'm here to tell you that there are three really really good reasons why you should chill out and follow a lot further back than the average driver. This simple approach will help you relax, reduce your risk AND spend less money on fuel by curbing consumption, all the while arriving at your destination no later than you originally would have anyway; too good to be true? Not so!

All you have to do is chuck out a 'couple of bananas'. And what I mean by that is, give yourself a little extra space between you and the car in front. When I was learning to drive, my dad would always tell me to 'Count Bananas' to see whether I was at a safe following distance or not. To do this, you pick a landmark coming up - maybe a road sign or a funky looking tree, then when the back of the vehicle in front of you passes that landmark you start counting. . . one banana, two banana, three bananas.... You need a minimum of Three Bananas (Don't speed through your bananas, they're supposed to count a FULL SECOND each) to ensure a safe distance behind the car in front - this gives you room to brake safely without colliding with them if something happens to go wrong (plus a couple of extra perks I'll go into below). 

1. Stress

You've heard of fight or flight, right? That's the state your sympathetic nervous system puts you in when it notices that you are in danger or threatened, it is designed to help sharpen your reflexes and get you ready to respond to the threats. A great evolutionary tool if you're being chased by a bear. A not so great state to be in when you're on the daily commute to work. Essentially, being closer than you need to be to the car in front stimulates your body to go into the "fight or flight" mode. You ARE in a dangerous situation (more on risk in the next section) and your body understands that it's under a little bit more pressure than usual to react fast to keep you safe. 

Chronic stress is unfortunately a perpetual state of the modern human, and we should be doing all we can to calm our adrenaline down a little bit; because it's not super healthy to be in that state all the time. In "fight or flight" your body diverts blood away from your digestive system towards your brain and your muscles, speeds up your heart rate and your breathing - putting stress on your system. I think your bodily resources would be much better put to use digesting your breakfast than trying to stop you having an accident each morning, don't you? Ease up a little on the pressure! sit a little further back, admire your surroundings - give yourself more room to see and to breathe and your body will thank you. 

One of the most common causes of Driver stress is traffic congestion, it has been shown again and again that increasing the space between vehicles and reducing tailgating reduces the number of traffic shock waves. A traffic shock wave can be triggered when a vehicle brakes and the vehicle behind is following too closely - because they must brake more heavily to account for the reaction time, which is amplified by the number of cars that are following in succession without adequate distance, this leads to traffic congestion. Reducing the number of traffic shock waves reduces congestion and travel times. So you may feel like you're getting there faster by driving closer to the car in front out of frustration, but you're actually making everything worse and if everyone left an adequate distance between themselves and the car in front the traffic would flow so much smoother!! How frustrating for those of us who know this and yet continue to see everyone around us ignoring this simple rule.

2. Risk

There are many factors that cause accidents, the most common ones are alcohol consumption and speeding - assuming you all know better than to do those two things while you're driving let's go on to talk about tailgating as a risk factor. The most common type of vehicle crash in Australia is a nose-to-tail collision; remember, NOBODY gets in the car expecting to have an accident and run up the bum of the car in front, and MOST PEOPLE think they're an above average driver. But the statistics don't lie, as a nation we're simply not giving ourselves enough space. 

Causing an accident is such a pain in the backside, if you could avoid the insurance nightmare and the couple of hundred dollars on excess you would, right? Put your money where your mouth is and for glob's sakes give yourself some more room! 


What distance do you actually need in order to stop in the event of an emergency? Here's a quick guide; at 100km/h (on the freeway) IN DRY CLEAR CONDITIONS it takes 98metres to come to a stop. Have you ever been to an olympic sized swimming pool? it's double that length. DOUBLE! Or very nearly 22 full standard car lengths. That's a very long way so the least you can do is put a bit of distance between you and the car in front to make sure if something does happen you have the capacity to reduce the severity of an accident or avoid it in the first place. It is often simpler to count time (i.e. BANANAS) rather than guess distances, and when you start doing this you'll notice that you're much further back at three bananas traveling 100km/h than you are when you're following 3 bananas back at 60km/h.

76% of crashes on the Kwinana Freeway, between the Mitchell Freeway and Canning Highway, over the five year period from 2009 to 2013 were rear-end crashes"(Main Roads WA Crash Data)

And we're not just talking about minor inconveniences here, people can and do die in these sorts of collisions at speed. I see tailgating way too often on the freeway and it is just not acceptable. Stop putting yourself and other road users at risk and just take a deep breath and put some extra distance between you and the car in front. Your life is worth it.

It's not only the risk of YOU causing an accident you're avoiding when you control your following behaviour - tailgating is a significant cause for erratic driving and road rage from the tailgated vehicle. So in the interest of being the responsible driver and ensuring everyone on the road is safe, you can control your influence over other drivers by making sure you keep your distance. 

3. Fuel consumption

According to New Zealands 'Driving Test Resources':

Generous following distances can help you keep a consistent speed, reducing your fuel consumption

There is a relationship between increased safety and lower fuel consumptions; and since the most common type of accident is nose-to-tail collisions, it is not a huge leap to assume that safer drivers are following at a safer distance behind the car in front. Driving smoothly and at a steady speed is known to increase fuel economy, it's easier to maintain a steady speed and a smooth driving style when you are at a safe distance behind the car in front; according to the Australian Government's Department of the Environment,

Driv[ing] at a good distance from the car in front... avoids unnecessary acceleration and frequent repetitive braking that ends up wasting fuel

All in all, increasing your following distance is known to improve your fuel economy, so chuck out some extra bananas in the interest of your wallet!  

So? What do you reckon? 

After all that, SURELY you want to give this Banana thing a go!? It's simple and it's easy and it might just help you avoid an accident, you don't need to limit it at three seconds either, five or six seconds between you and the car in front is really where you need to be to give yourself the buffer room to reduce your stress and fuel consumption while driving - especially if the weather's less than ideal or you're feeling tired or distracted. The best thing about this is you don't have to calculate distances like 21.5 car lengths (see below), just count bananas. It's simple and it's easy. Don't be afraid to give yourself as many bananas as you need - your safety and the safety of other road users increases as your following distance increases - so let's be safe! 

Please share with your friends, everyone deserves to be safe on the roads! Peace and love my friends. 

    

Sources

QLD Government - Road Safety

NSW Government - Car Crashes

Budget Direct - Car Accident Statistics

Monash University Accident Research Centre

Australian Government Department of the Environment

RACQ - Fuel economy

Princeton University - The effect of driver behaviour on freeway traffic flow

Drive Safely - Gas Economy

Forbes - If we all stopped tailgating we could dramatically cut traffic jams