A vehicle is following you so closely that its bonnet fills your mirror. You are already at the posted limit on a two-lane road. What is the safest way to manage the situation?

Why B is correct

You cannot control the space behind your car, but you control the space in front of it, and a tailgater destroys your front margin: if you brake hard, they will hit you. The response is to enlarge your own following distance so that any braking you do is slow and spread out, and then to shed the tailgater at the first legal opportunity — a passing lane, a turnout, a right turn you were making anyway. Confronting the behaviour with brake-checks converts a bad habit of theirs into a rear-end collision with your boot on the accelerator of it.

Why the other options are wrong

A. Brake firmly to teach the follower a lesson about safe distance

Braking to punish a tailgater is the one move that reliably produces the collision both parties fear, and it hands the aftermath to your insurance as a preventable crash. The tailgater's mistake becomes your emergency through your own choice.

C. Accelerate above the limit to open the gap quickly

Speeding to escape closes your own front margin while the follower simply closes it again — you arrive at the next signal with the same bumper in your mirror and a violation added to the situation.

D. Switch on your hazard lights until the vehicle drops back

Hazard lights signal a stationary or disabled vehicle. Using them while moving tells following drivers something false, and the tailgater is far more likely to read it as provocation than as information.

On the road

A pickup rides your bumper down a canyon two-lane at the limit. You cannot shed it, so you stretch your gap to the vehicle ahead to nearly triple its normal size and plan every braking early and gently. At the next passing lane you lift once and let it by. The truck is gone in twenty seconds; your front margin survives the whole episode intact.

Similar questions

• Passing a Motorcycle | CO

  You are overtaking a motorcycle travelling in the centre of its lane on a two-lane road. How should the pass be executed?

• Backing Safely | CO

  Before reversing out of a driveway onto a street with foot traffic, what is the safest way to establish what is behind your vehicle?

• The Stale Green Light | CO

  You are approaching a signal that has been green the entire time you have been able to see it. What is the defensive habit for this situation?

• First Rain After a Dry Spell | CO

  A light rain begins after two weeks of dry weather. Why do experienced drivers treat the first stretch of rainfall as unusually slippery?

• Passing on the Right | CO

  A car in the lane to your left is stopped, waiting to make a left turn. The pavement to its right is wide enough for another vehicle. When may you pass it on the right?