Funny thing about speed. When we are seated in our comfortable, quiet running, smooth riding, climate controlled automobile of ours, we can very often forget that the speed that the car is traveling is the speed at which we ourselves are traveling. While you might think that there is not a single driver on the road that has disconnected those two facts, and with the increase of teenage driver accidents I am afraid that you could quite possibly be wrong. If everyone had a true appreciation of the fact that their actual bodies were traveling the same speed as their cars we probably wouldn’t see quite so many people text and reading and God knows what else is behind the wheel.

Let’s do a little math. A mile is a distance equal to 5280 feet. A car traveling at 60 miles per hour travels that distance in a scant 60 seconds. This works out to a speed of 88 feet per second. What this surprising little fact means is that an automobile traveling at 60 miles per hour is covering an amazing 8.8 feet every one tenth of a second! In case you are wondering, a tenth of a second is the approximate amount of time driver “B”  it takes a human being to blink.

Let’s just say that if car “A” is driving at 58 miles per hour and car “B” is approaching from the rear at 60 miles per hour, it won’t take long for the driver of car “B” to be 8.8 (or less!) feet behind car “A”. What will happen if car “A” has to make a sudden stop due to an obstacle in the road or simply slows down to change lanes and, at that precise instant, Driver “B” blinks? There would be no way that he or she could react in time and they would get to meet Driver “A” completely by accident. Is it any wonder that in 2006 that following too closely was the number 5 cause of all automobile accidents in Texas?

It never hurts, from time to time, to be reminded about little lifesaving details like this one whether we have been driving a long time or are getting behind the wheel for the first time. To drive safety, we should treat that as number one priority for everyone. Texas Adult Drivers Course is a fun and easy way to brush up on your driving safety skills . Consider signing up for a driving course today!