When I commuted to work, I'd keep the same tight pattern everyone else used, and it felt like any time I let up, some jerk would take advantage.
Then, for a while, I was suddenly paid to go between buildings on opposite sides of one of the worst traffic cities in the US. I always left with plenty of time and no urgency, so I would just stubbornly maintain plenty of stopping distance while everyone else was inches apart. Smoothing my braking pattern became a game.
If you constantly leave that much room people weaving in becomes rare enough that you barely care when it happens.
I feel like there's some bias affecting perception. Maybe it's a confound, or availability heuristic.
Confound - if you're trying to hug a bumper, and suddenly there's a gap, maybe that's because your lane is suddenly moving faster and someone's taking advantage of that. If you always have space, you'll have it even when your lane is less attractive. (ie, The space doesn't make your lane attractive, the pace does.)
Availability heuristic - if you care about people cutting you off and are adopting a strategy to prevent it, you will notice it more and put more weight on those occurrences than on all the seconds where no one is cutting you off.
Before I had that job, I would have read this comment and thought it was nuts though, so not sure if anyone will actually believe me.
FWIW when in traffic I always try to maintain enough distance ahead of me that I do not have to ever stop completely, and that I can also hopefully not use the brake.
I swear I've watched traffic clear up around me. Of course it's anecdotal, but it tends to keep things moving, even if slowly, rather than bringing everything to a halt.
I worry there's a sampling bias going on.
When I commuted to work, I'd keep the same tight pattern everyone else used, and it felt like any time I let up, some jerk would take advantage.
Then, for a while, I was suddenly paid to go between buildings on opposite sides of one of the worst traffic cities in the US. I always left with plenty of time and no urgency, so I would just stubbornly maintain plenty of stopping distance while everyone else was inches apart. Smoothing my braking pattern became a game.
If you constantly leave that much room people weaving in becomes rare enough that you barely care when it happens.
I feel like there's some bias affecting perception. Maybe it's a confound, or availability heuristic.
Confound - if you're trying to hug a bumper, and suddenly there's a gap, maybe that's because your lane is suddenly moving faster and someone's taking advantage of that. If you always have space, you'll have it even when your lane is less attractive. (ie, The space doesn't make your lane attractive, the pace does.)
Availability heuristic - if you care about people cutting you off and are adopting a strategy to prevent it, you will notice it more and put more weight on those occurrences than on all the seconds where no one is cutting you off.
Before I had that job, I would have read this comment and thought it was nuts though, so not sure if anyone will actually believe me.