🚀 go-pugleaf

>
> The average following distance on a road like the Beltway
> represents the consensus of what is safe under given
> conditions. (I happen to think that it requires too much
> hitting the brake pedal to keep it safe, and so I prefer a
> longer distance, but that's more a matter of taste.) The
> extraordinary number of accidents along the East coast when
> the storm hit means, most likely, that the conditions
> deteriorated faster than most people had ever experienced,

Most people will NEVER be involved in a 100 care pile up.   The reason we
have driving rules (including speed limits) is to have people do the correct
thing even when they don't know the reason.    At the speed limit on I-95
most cars can STOP in less than 200 feet.    Even most of the trucks could
stop in a little more than the length of a football field.    If everyone
were doing the limit and was not following too closely and had enough common
sense then everyone would have slowed to a crawl when the white out hit.

MAYBE a few folks would have fender bender type taps and when the white out
ended, they could have driven away.    The ice and snow should have caused a
general speed reduction to the point where the stopping distances could have
been maintained but NOOOO....

> especially given the series of mild winters in the area up to
> now. It was a matter of lack of flexibility, not of being
> stupid or having dangerous intentions.

Or, perhaps, STUPID INFLEXIBILTY!