I did. Literally in the post above yours.
Generally it's why if someone hits you from behind it's going to be their fault- because they did not leave enough room to be able to brake their own car in time if the one in front of them braked for whatever reason.
If you do that you won't run into the back of other people. If you don't, you're likely driving illegally.
Your own states laws on this, with virtually identical wording to mine, are here:
» Tennessee Code 55-8-124 – Following too closelyLawServer
This reminds me of people making up excuses to illegally tailgate.
I started replying, and walked away for a while before I finished. Ironically because I'm at an event in your state (Raleigh) this weekend, and get pulled away at times.
"Reasonable and prudent" is a horrendously ambiguous term that is not going to stand up in any court of law when a vehicle brake checks for no reason, whatsoever. Defining "too closely" requires quantifiable measures (i.e. distance in units such as feet or car lengths), not ambiguous ones that are only qualitative and judgement calls.
And the perspective that leaving enough space to always avoid an accident if being brake checked is reasonable and prudent does not come from those who live and drive in bigger cities such as Atlanta (where I learned to drive). Keeping the car length for every 10MPH rule of thumb will keep a driver constantly slowing as others merge into the space. And more and more studies are showing that the slower drivers are the ones who cause more accidents on freeways, though they often are not even involved.
And like I said, it isn't usually the car behind the one that brake checks, it is several cars behind. Happens all the time. Happened to me a few months ago, crested a hill to find traffic slowed drastically, guy ahead of me hit the brakes hard, I hit the brakes hard, the guy behind me did, the guy behind him ran off the road, and two cars later there was a rear-end collision. Watched if all unfold in my rear view mirror, as as soon as I saw the brake lights come on and the rear end of the car ahead of me light (from weight transfer), my first thought was that I might get rear ended. Literally, add a few tenths of reaction time, and at 60MPH, that closes the gap by 25 feet (26.4 to be exact) assuming the same deceleration. Which of course won't happen, the second car will brake harder. Meaning a higher decel rate, then add that 0.3 seconds for the car behind it, and it brakes even harder. It is the accordian affect, and if traffic is heavy, there WILL be a collision.
I've been pulled over for following too closely, actually. Not so calmly told the cop that the car in front of me slammed on brakes and cut me off when the driver saw him. In other words, one doesn't always control the distance between them and the car in front of them. FWIW, cop's response was "Okay, have a nice day."
At the end of the day, this all boils down to one thing that drivers depend on from other drivers - predictability. The TACC/AP often behaves in ways that are very unpredictable. And frankly, I'm a whole lot less concerned about whether a guy behind me gets a ticket for following too closely than I am about fixing my car if I am rear ended. Reasonable people are more concerned about avoiding accidents than they are about scapegoating others so their dangerous behaviors are not punished when they cause an accident.
