An aspect of the transport industry’s safety that is often ignored is tailgating. This very dangerous practice can cause serious and even fatal crashes, which is why The WA authorities have chosen this as the focus of a new initiative.
Members of the transport industry can do their part by displaying the appropriate signage on their vehicles warning drivers behind them not to tailgate.
The aggressive behaviour is often associated with road rage and other dangerous driving behaviour. This initiative is particularly important because law enforcement often does nothing to curb this wreakless behaviour on our roads or prosecute the guilty parties.
This post on Fullyloaded.com.au provides a detailed report of the initiative:
Driving behaviour around heavy vehicles is the focus of a multi-agency project in the Great Southern region of Western Australia.
The safety initiative aims to discourage drivers who persist in aggressive tailgating, especially behind agricultural and haulage vehicles.
Great Southern Police have linked with local government, Farmsafe WA and local Roadwise committees, with local haulage and coach operators instrumental in “getting the message out on the road networks by displaying the signage on their vehicles”, police say.
As part of the project, tens of thousands of rear wind screen ‘RU 2 CLOSE?’ signs have been distributed to the motoring public throughout many areas of the Great Southern region and larger magnetic signs have been distributed to the agricultural and haulage sector for display on the rear of trucks.
This is designed to create a high impact awareness of the project on the road network.
“Tailgating is undoubtedly one of the most dangerous and foolish examples of bad driving we see every day on our roads and highways Senior Constable Tam McKeown says.
“It is also recognised as one of the biggest factors in triggering road rage and intimidating other motorists.
“The project is designed to encourage the motoring public to drive at an appropriate speed, where they can always stop their vehicle in the distance they can see to be clear.”
Source: https://www.fullyloaded.com.au/industry-news/1207/wa-region-tackles-tailgating
The problem with tailgating is that it does not allow sufficient time for the vehicle doing the tailgating to stop if the vehicle in front suddenly halts. A sufficient gap should be left between the vehicle in front and the vehicle following. A safe following distance should be at least a car length, and perhaps even more in rainy, slippery or bad weather conditions.
Some of the possible reactions if you are being tailgated are:
- Change your lane to let the tailgater pass you.
- Slow down to encourage the tailgater to overtake you. On an A road if there’s a straight with no oncoming traffic simply slow and indicate left. Consider using a hand signal to indicate that you want the driver to pass you.
- Overtake to get away on a road, if a tailgater catches you up in a stream of traffic you might choose to overtake to get away if the tailgater is threatening.
- Accelerate to get away on a motorway (especially) you might find someone tailgates you while you are overtaking a stream in lane 1 or lane 2.
- The cars on the left (all driving too close as usual) prevent you from moving left so you. Do not get carried away and accelerate to a speed which isn’t safe! Accelerating to get away tends to be a temporary solution, because the driver will probably catch up again. Be ready to pull left and allow him to pass easily if he does.
- Leave a double gap in front so that you can see any sudden stops ahead of you and you will not have to brake quickly, causing the tailgater to hit into the rear end of your vehicle.
- Stop, turn off or go around a roundabout If all the above has failed to dislodge a persistent tailgater you must stop or turn off at the next opportunity. Another option is to go around a roundabout a whole extra turn. It might cost you a few seconds but it will be even more costly to repair your vehicle if the tailgater hits into you.
