2023-12-27 14:50:53
Nearly six out of ten drivers maintain a gap of less than two seconds from the vehicle in front and a third of trucks drive less than 50 meters from the vehicle in front of them on the highway. This is what emerges from a study by the Vias institute, carried out on four million cars and 400,000 trucks and buses on motorways.
In Belgium, 58% of passenger cars therefore drive less than two seconds from the rear bumper of the preceding vehicle outside of traffic jams. This is observed more on the middle band (64%) and the left band (65%) than on the right band (49%), specifies Vias.
Furthermore, 30% of trucks and buses follow the vehicle preceding them within 50 meters. This percentage is almost twice as high (31%) on weekdays as on weekends (19%).
One in 3 accidents with fatalities is a rear-end collision
On the highway, one accident in three resulting in death or injury is a rear-end collision and one accident in five is a chain collision, i.e. one involving at least three vehicles. Around 70% of rear-end collisions are due to insufficient safety distance and each year, more than 1,000 accidents are due to failure to respect the safety distance on the motorway, says Vias.
Currently, the Belgian highway code states that the driver must maintain a safe distance “sufficient“between his vehicle and the one in front of him.”Even if the meaning of the word “sufficient” is not specified, we can reasonably assume that it is equivalent to the distance traveled by the vehicle in two seconds“, note l’institut.
In France, the two-second rule is mentioned in the law and this solution has also been recommended in the new version of the highway code in Belgium, which should come into force at the end of 2025, Vias further details.
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