During the season break, we've pulled out a bonus short from one of our early episodes. This one is from Episode 17, Tailgating, Overtaking and Intimidation with Matt Adams.

So that leads us onto the types of abuse that people were reporting. there were three really high types of abuse that stood out here, which were tailgating, overtaken, and then beeping the car horn.

Yeah. I mean, if I, if I could start off on this one then, because the tailgating is from somebody who's worked in insurance for 20 years, tailgating is one of my biggest pet peeves. I cannot stand it. You cannot phase through another car. You have to wait behind you, can't go through them. So if you are up late, that's your own fault. Get up earlier, you know, if you need to leave to go somewhere and you haven't done it in time, get up earlier. If you thought sometimes you can take five minutes to get to and it takes ten. That's on you don't put that on the person in front of you. And the most common accident in the UK is going into the back of someone. And it has been since I started insurance in 2003, and it's just, it blows my mind how people think they've got the reactions of Spider-Man and they can just stop on a dime. No, you can't. You are a human being and physics is a thing. So please just give more space between you and the person in front of you whether they're a learner driver or not just do it, just give them more space. because however, close you think you can get your can't. And there are hundreds of thousands of people who've had to go through a claim because of it. But that's my, just my two pence yet.

See, I love that because I get it all the time now where people are using highway code figures, and they're saying that this is old, the highway codes for these stopping distances is so old fashioned so, but I've got a new car and my brakes are really good. And I've got a light car now. My car is not as heavy so I can stop quicker. No, I wish everybody could have seen Matt's face then, because it was picture it really was.

Um, to that I say, you know, as far as I'm aware, physics hasn't changed since the sixties, it still works the same way. You still have to bring your car to a stop and you know what, if your car can stop in 31 meters instead of 33, that's excellent. Are you out there with the tape measure? no you're not, so, like I say, I mean, maybe it's just my perspective from working claims for as long as I did, but, if any number of those hundred thousand people just give them a little bit extra space, just left an extra half a second, which is something we say to the guys when they're looking at break distances with the boxes, give yourself, so when you, you know, that point, when you start feeling comfortable, when you're going right I'm going to break here because this is where I feel comfortable breaking. And I know that just give yourself a half a second and think about how far your car travel. In that half a second cause now you've got that much more space and you can bring it to a much slower, much gentler stop. And therefore you're not putting as much force, but Yeah. It's just these little things that people, and I think it brings us back around to what you're saying, being people take it for granted. And it's not out there, but yeah, you're absolutely right. I've had every I'm going to call it a reason as opposed to an excuse for every reason under the sun as to why they can break in different scenarios. So, okay. Let me see you in a month when you have an accident, it's that simple?

Yeah. Me personally, I don't get it because, it's just like, things happen so quick and now because we're driving slightly quicker potentially. But there's also a lot more distractions about.

Absolutely.

Matt's face has gone again, by the way that,

absolutely. Couldn't agree more. I'm sorry. This is just my face. I don't hide anything very well.

but this is what I'm saying to people, yes, the car won't do this, but we've still got to stop and yet you're quite right. You might stop two meters shorter than what you're thinking, but there's so many more distractions in the car that you might not actually see what's happening in front of you because you're distracted. And yeah, I think that's got a lot to do with tailgate and as well, people just don't realize how close they're getting.

Yeah, A hundred percent. And I mean the other side of things, sort of adding on to that as well while you're being tailgated, what are you doing?. You're looking in your rear view mirror, the person who's tailgating you. Cause you're worried about how close they're getting what you're not seeing is how close you're getting to the car in front of you. And again, it's just one of those things that it just doesn't help this scenario and you not getting there any quicker. And so, like I say, tailgating, I don't understand the logic behind it. Are they trying to force them out the way in a one lane road? Like, I mean, where do you want them to go? And they can't go up and it's very, very confusing situations may, but again, it's something where, um, I mean I've as somebody who's been driving for a good amount of time now, if I do see someone tailgating, a learner car, I like look to sort of indicate and get in between them. So I can then slow down and just slow the other person down and get them out of the way. But I'm super conscious of this sort of thing, working with Marmalade, especially recently having this petition that I'm like, well, no, I'm not going to allow that. But You know all it takes is, some burly guy to get out his car and I might reconsider my position, but, um, yeah you're safe in your car,

Yeah.

absolutely safe in my car and locked the doors and hide. call The authorities.

So Kev what advice would you give to somebody who's experiencing in tailgating? What should people do? Well, what I like to do, and I think we've mentioned this on a previous podcast, but drive in a bubble. And basically what I mean is you're driving, in a bubble. So if you imagine you've got a bubble in front of you, which is a nice, safe distance that you feel comfortable with. You got the same amount of bubble behind you. So, this bubble is a nice safety bubble and it's all fantastic. So if you are being tailgated, someone's actually come in to that bubble and is pushing that bubble towards you. But what happens is that bubble now goes in front of you. So if you've got, say for instance, and just make this simple, but if you've got three car lengths behind you and three car lengths in front of you, and you're quite happy at that, you know,

Yeah.

So if someone comes up behind you and they go into that bubble, so you've only got two car lengths behind you. What's happened is the other car length is now in front of you. So you and the car in front of now got four car lengths. So still keeping that safety bubble. It's still the same distance, but what's happened is you've now increased the distance between you and the car in front. And what enables that to happen is like what Matt did, where he goes in between. And he slows down and increases that gap. You've actually increased the gap between you and the car in front. So if something happens, you don't have to slam the brakes on, you can control what you're doing and also control the car behind you earlier.

Yeah, that's fantastic. I'm enjoying this I'm learning something new.

I mean, obviously the faster you go, the more car lengths, the bigger the bubble is, but if you have that thought or that picture that you can create in your mind, it's like well he's pushed that bubble forward I now need to create space in front of me.

yeah,

now I've got this safety gap. That's pretty good. But also if the car, I don't know, but it's, you know, one of the other things, there was people overtaking, but if that person behind you is going, do you know what? I can't stand this no more. You're just, he overtakes what you've also done is allowed him space to get in. So you've now created him space to get in where you can then go back to what you was doing. Create your own safety bubble again. And he's in front of you and probably doing it to the car in front of him again.

More than likely.

But what you've done is you're just you can control those situations, but it takes a lot of thought, it takes a lot of thinking about how you can do it, what you can do. And obviously some situations you can't really do that, but hopefully you can control the situation for yourself more than letting the others control what they want you to do.

Yeah. I mean, I'm what you're really doing though, is your being the adult in the situation. And

I'm just gonna jump in here to let you know about our drive calm journal. We've created a 12 week prompt journal to support our listeners to take action and improve driving confidence. The journal includes questions, prompts, and exercises to create an action plan and an opportunity for reflection afterwards. Search drive calm on Amazon to take a look. We hope it helps.