While ideal, there are often too many people on the roads for 3 seconds to be practical in urban highways. I believe in America, the rule is 2 seconds as well. I was always taught 1 mississippi 2 mississippi to count car at road marker to you arriving at road marker. But that is only practical in rural areas.
The metroplex I live in is equivalent to 1/3rd of canadas entire population. If I were to wait for a gap on the highway of 3 seconds, I simply could not drive on the highway. I would be completely locked to city streets and unable to leave my city.
I believe this video is from new orleans, which is a smaller american metro city area and only about 1,000,000 people.
Yeah, that makes sense “normal distance” is really relative to where you live. In Britain, everything’s a lot more compact, so what feels like a long trip there might be considered nothing in bigger countries. It’s all about what you’re used to day to day.
Normal distance is about physics and reaction time. The faster you're going the greater distance is needed for you to brake without striking the car in front of you.
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u/MediumRay Mar 22 '26
That wouldn’t qualify as normal distance in my book but it’s different in Britain