Even if you are the most defensive and careful driver, occasional hard (or sudden) braking is sometimes necessary when something enters your path unexpectedly. I maintain frequent braking (riding the brakes) is a greater indicator of incompetent driving. This means the driver is going too fast for conditions or following too close. Way more potential for a crash than infrequent hard braking. Frequent hard braking? – definitely an incompetent driver.
You are likely right about riding the brakes being an indicator of incompetent driving but if your sample is large enough, you will most certainly see a clear Pareto Principle where 20% of the most frequent hard brakers cause 80% of your moor vehicle incidents. I have seen this first hand with two independent data sets at my company. The point of the article is that occasional hard braking can be viewed as unavoidable but if you are repeatedly hard braking it is a sign that you are not driving defensively.
I am finishing up my doctoral research on developing and testing causation based auto-liability policies, and to my understanding the primary characteristics associated with hard braking is that driver’s braking reaction time tend to be longer than his/her following headway. Because of such characteristics drivers tend to brake hard, and eventually elevate the risk of a potential crash. Identifying such pattern is crucial in developing causation based liability policies, such as user based insurance schemes. I believe Progressive is also moving in those incentive based schemes as primary insurance policies in the future.
I had one of those devices (from Progressive) that beep when you do a hard break.
It would beep like when I brake hard when another driver change lane in front of me unexpectedly with no signaling which made me feel like I am punished for avoiding an accident (by breaking hard) and it was not a “you did not keep enough distance from the driver in front of you” situation.
But almost all of the beeps I got in situations when I was approaching an intersection going with let’s say speed 45mph (not above the legal limit) and when I was like 5-6 seconds away from intersection the light would change from green to yellow. Now if I do nothing (maintain speed) in 4-5 seconds the light would turn from yellow to red so I would be passing on red light: first of all obviously not safe and second if a police car would have been there II would get a ticket (meaning a fee, points, insurance increase because of that…). In fact, even if I pass on yellow I could get stopped by police if he considers that I could have stopped.
The choices were
1) pass with luck on yellow or more likely on red which I consider unsafe or/and potentially costly
or
2) stop, which I consider I could do it safely but get a penalty point – the device will beep – for breaking hard.
so the device was actually encouraging me to become an unsafe driver which made me return the device. After a month of using the device, I started passing more yellow lights than before just to avoid the beep while also getting annoyed by the beep in the few situations where there was no other option or way to prevent a hard breaking.
Look at the article claim that you need 17 seconds average to stop from 40mph, that means that if you are 8 seconds away from a light that turns yellow and then in 4 seconds red you have no choice but to pass on red? Am I the only one who sees their logic is wrong?
There was a commercial for Detroit Press where they say there is a correlation between families that have subscribed to the newspaper and families who have children in college. They were implying that you better subscribe to the newspaper if you want your child to get a higher education. I am not saying the newspaper does not provide interesting or useful articles, however, this is a false correlation: The true correlation is that families with money to send their children to college are more likely to have also a dollar to spend on a Sunday paper. If you are poor and you don’t have money to send your child to college, subscribing to all the newspaper in the world will not get your child in college. Probably people who have accidents do more hard breaking, but to say people who do hard breaking are more likely to have accidents is like the Detroit newspaper commercial. Maybe is true for people who hard brake on freeways?
Also when I approach an intersection I look in the rearview mirror: if no one is behind me I usually choose to stop if I can and not go through a yellow light but if another car is close tailgating me I usually decide to continue at the same speed and run through the yellow light (so he will not hit me if I brake in front of him). As this example shows, adapting to external conditions can keep you safe from accidents more than one rule (“no hard breaking = good driver”) for all.
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Even if you are the most defensive and careful driver, occasional hard (or sudden) braking is sometimes necessary when something enters your path unexpectedly. I maintain frequent braking (riding the brakes) is a greater indicator of incompetent driving. This means the driver is going too fast for conditions or following too close. Way more potential for a crash than infrequent hard braking. Frequent hard braking? – definitely an incompetent driver.
You are likely right about riding the brakes being an indicator of incompetent driving but if your sample is large enough, you will most certainly see a clear Pareto Principle where 20% of the most frequent hard brakers cause 80% of your moor vehicle incidents. I have seen this first hand with two independent data sets at my company. The point of the article is that occasional hard braking can be viewed as unavoidable but if you are repeatedly hard braking it is a sign that you are not driving defensively.
I am finishing up my doctoral research on developing and testing causation based auto-liability policies, and to my understanding the primary characteristics associated with hard braking is that driver’s braking reaction time tend to be longer than his/her following headway. Because of such characteristics drivers tend to brake hard, and eventually elevate the risk of a potential crash. Identifying such pattern is crucial in developing causation based liability policies, such as user based insurance schemes. I believe Progressive is also moving in those incentive based schemes as primary insurance policies in the future.
I had one of those devices (from Progressive) that beep when you do a hard break.
It would beep like when I brake hard when another driver change lane in front of me unexpectedly with no signaling which made me feel like I am punished for avoiding an accident (by breaking hard) and it was not a “you did not keep enough distance from the driver in front of you” situation.
But almost all of the beeps I got in situations when I was approaching an intersection going with let’s say speed 45mph (not above the legal limit) and when I was like 5-6 seconds away from intersection the light would change from green to yellow. Now if I do nothing (maintain speed) in 4-5 seconds the light would turn from yellow to red so I would be passing on red light: first of all obviously not safe and second if a police car would have been there II would get a ticket (meaning a fee, points, insurance increase because of that…). In fact, even if I pass on yellow I could get stopped by police if he considers that I could have stopped.
The choices were
1) pass with luck on yellow or more likely on red which I consider unsafe or/and potentially costly
or
2) stop, which I consider I could do it safely but get a penalty point – the device will beep – for breaking hard.
so the device was actually encouraging me to become an unsafe driver which made me return the device. After a month of using the device, I started passing more yellow lights than before just to avoid the beep while also getting annoyed by the beep in the few situations where there was no other option or way to prevent a hard breaking.
Look at the article claim that you need 17 seconds average to stop from 40mph, that means that if you are 8 seconds away from a light that turns yellow and then in 4 seconds red you have no choice but to pass on red? Am I the only one who sees their logic is wrong?
There was a commercial for Detroit Press where they say there is a correlation between families that have subscribed to the newspaper and families who have children in college. They were implying that you better subscribe to the newspaper if you want your child to get a higher education. I am not saying the newspaper does not provide interesting or useful articles, however, this is a false correlation: The true correlation is that families with money to send their children to college are more likely to have also a dollar to spend on a Sunday paper. If you are poor and you don’t have money to send your child to college, subscribing to all the newspaper in the world will not get your child in college. Probably people who have accidents do more hard breaking, but to say people who do hard breaking are more likely to have accidents is like the Detroit newspaper commercial. Maybe is true for people who hard brake on freeways?
Also when I approach an intersection I look in the rearview mirror: if no one is behind me I usually choose to stop if I can and not go through a yellow light but if another car is close tailgating me I usually decide to continue at the same speed and run through the yellow light (so he will not hit me if I brake in front of him). As this example shows, adapting to external conditions can keep you safe from accidents more than one rule (“no hard breaking = good driver”) for all.
That is a lucid, well thought-out intelligent objection that unfortunately no one will listen to