Safety over comfort.
Good luck having a following distance of more than one carlength on most urban freeways during rush hour. You have to brake based on the the specific car at the following distance you would maintain if the road weren’t completely full. You watch that car, not the car in front of you.
I had something crazy happen thrice.
Once, I was on 409 driving ~60 with the rest of traffic. Dense traffic. An accident happened over the crest of a hill, and every single car hit the car in front of them. Traffic just over the hill was dead stopped. It was crazy.
Another time, I was driving through Canada on a lonely highway. I had plenty of following distance. The car in front of me tipped forward while braking. I slammed on my brakes.
Good thing I did. It turned out a tree was fallen entirely across the freeway just around a corner. He hit it. If I hadn’t slammed on the brakes, I would have hit him or the tree.
Saved me a third time on the Taconic. The cars way ahead suddenly braked. I did my thing. All the other cars ahead of me ended up hitting eachother. Turned out there was a ladder lying in the right lane.
This sounds like a super great way of plowing into the car in front of you if they brake hard. And you can always create proper following distance by slowing down a bit. If people behind you get mad you’re slowing down, fuck 'em.
Sharp breaking is not safer. Only in your crazy mind of shit Rym made up. Do that during a driving test you think they are going to be like 'wow, what great driving!" Find any driver’s ed book or guide to safe driving that says that is a good idea? No. Only the crazy one written by Rym to justify his bad driving.
When traffic is so tight you drive really really slow so you can still gradually come to a stop even with that short following distance.
You can never plow into the car in front of you unless you’re a jackass following too close and not paying attention. It’s always your fault if you hit the car in front of you.
In two of those situations above, had I not shed substantial speed at the moment the downstream accident happened, I would have had to ditch off the road to avoid the completely blocked highway.
I was saved by shedding more speed sooner. The person behind me wasn’t paying attention and hit me (no damage) in one case. In the other they swerved into the next lane and ended up hitting the stopped traffic instead.
My choice was:
Always choose to be hit from behind. Never choose to hit the thing in front of you.
Have you ever driven in New York?
If there is even one car length in front of you, someone will change lanes and fill it. You’ll never have more than half a car length in front of you at any given time during rush hour 
Even if you just drive slower, people are constantly merging in front of you from both sides for the entire trip. There’s always a car there: it just keeps being a different car.
I mean, to be fair, you also just described medium Boston traffic, or the average Rhode Islander.
That’s fine, just keep letting them do that. You are going slow enough that you can brake smoothly and never hit any of them.
It’s the same in DC area and this was never an issue to me. Let them cut in, I slow down for a second to create space and then resume speed. Even if it keeps happening, even if it takes forever, I don’t care.
Pretty hypocritical to hear Rym talk about safety being the highest priority when he drives crazy fast and definitely makes shortening his trip the highest priority.
Well, there’s other types of fatigue other than sleepiness, but you are right. And I do try to avoid driving while fatigued unless necessary.
I never speed on a non-freeway. Never.
On a freeway, I only speed if I’m going the same speed as traffic or the road is deserted.
What happened to Rym’s theory of fastest driving?
I rarely drive.
Even back during the day of Rym’s Theory of Fastest Driving, I only ever did it on the freeway.
I… did average just shy of 90MPH once from Rochester to Detroit, including stops… But that was a long time ago, in the dead of the night, on a completely empty, open, straight road through the Ontario wilderness.
Drive to suit conditions, pay attention, brake in such a manner as to preserve your own ass but also when reasonable give your passengers a comfortable ride plus the comfort of not wondering if you are going to hit the thing they see looming. Also I brake in such a manner as to most clearly communicate intentions to people following. Tapping a few times might send flashing signals that wake up the maybe half-dazed brain of the person behind me. Slowing in “bursts” vs just coasting over an extended distance or slamming all at once seems to also be a good way of doing it.
If I had to choose an impairment a driver would be under, I’d take the high one over the tired or drunken one. I’d take tired before drunk, at least a bit of adrenaline or other stimulation might coax the brain into clarity as needed. But I’d rather ride with the one who is alert, but also drank one beer at dinner, before I go with the one barely awake.
Obviously allowing no willful impairment is the only proper way but it’s sometimes hard to stay 100% proper and we have to accept our levels of uncertainty and risk with each new challenge.
I’m in favor of getting rid of my cars and relying on transit going forward, to be quite sure.
I love how it feels to not own a car. It’s been a decade since I’ve owned one, and I’m never looking back.
So, this is a thing that happened.
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