The response to “Too little distance is so brutally expensive” was enormous: Our contribution explained how much the impending penalties for too little distance are usually underestimated. But many readers commented that enough distance is hardly possible in everyday life anyway. Blick therefore dares to try it on itself.
We take an endurance test car with a distance display, the Renault Captur E-Tech – and drive on the A1 motorway in the Zurich area. Traffic is rather weak today – it should work there. At first it looks like this: For a long time nobody really cares about our correct gap of 1.8 to 2.0 seconds.
Sometimes it gets really hairy
Then the traffic gets denser – and goodbye, correct distance. If we stick to the two-second rule of thumb, the gap itself appears gigantic to us. And car after car cuts into it before us. In order to maintain the correct distance, we then take it off the gas: Less than 1.8 seconds there is a fine of hundreds of francs. But then the cars come too close behind us. Far too close often.
Sometimes it gets really hairy: In the Gubrist tunnel, of all places, a car cuts in so tightly (estimated two meters at a speed of 80) that we have to hit the iron. Not an isolated case: Especially after the lanes have been removed in front of the tunnel, almost all of them drive up too close, many up to the length of a car. If everyone immediately took off the gas to keep them away, it would jam behind it. But if you just keep on driving, you are there with more than a net wage, buses and three months on foot.
Cruise control opens too close
We get skeptical: Is the ad exaggerating? We count using delineator posts (50 meters away) and using the two-second rule (remember the point, then say “twenty-one, twenty-two” rather slowly). Result: The distance display is correct. What is also true is only just: the distance can hardly be maintained, although the traffic is still relatively easy (see video).
By the way: Anyone who relies on a radar-based cruise control can experience a nasty surprise. Because every country has different regulations and in order to meet every situation, you can vary – in the test car, for example, from 2.4 to 2.0 and 1.6 to 1.2 seconds apart. With 1.6 you are already in the expensive area, with 1.2 seconds even in the ID withdrawal area. This is not an excuse: drivers are responsible for choosing the correct level.
Fines instead of reprimand?
Perhaps a system à la Germany would be better? Distance fines are defined there in the catalog of fines, starting with less than a second. That in itself is not enough – but maybe just more realistic. With us, due to the lack of fixed fines, the distance is seldom checked, but in the event of an incident it will be horrendously expensive. And that is another reason why hardly anyone knows exactly how much is actually far too little very quickly.