I’ll start. Stopping distance.
My commute is 95 miles one way to work, so I see a lot of the highway, in the rural part of the US. This means traveling at 70+ mph (112km/h) for almost the entirety of the drive. The amount of other drivers on the road who follow behind someone else with less than a car’s length in front of them because they want to go 20+ over the speed limit is ridiculous. The only time you ever follow someone that close is if you have complete and absolute trust in them, and also understand that it may not even be enough.
For a daily drive, you likely need 2-3 car lengths between you at minimum depending on your speed to accurately avoid hitting the brakes. This doesn’t even take into account the lack of understanding of engine braking…
What concepts do you all think of when it comes to driving that you feel are not well understood by the public at large?
For car distance I’ve seen 2-3 seconds start to be recommended, since people are not good at judging distance. So counting how long it takes to reach the same fixed point as the car ahead.
Car length per 10mph is much easier in my opinion. 2-3 seconds isn’t based on any speed so by itself is quite useless. Your car’s stopping distance changes with speed. It won’t always be 2-3 seconds. Let alone counting reaction time at higher speeds.