Mark Rober just set up one of the most interesting self-driving tests of 2025, and he did it by imitating Looney Tunes. The former NASA engineer and current YouTube mad scientist recreated the classic gag where Wile E. Coyote paints a tunnel onto a wall to fool the Road Runner.
Only this time, the test subject wasn’t a cartoon bird… it was a self-driving Tesla Model Y.
The result? A full-speed, 40 MPH impact straight into the wall. Watch the video and tell us what you think!
Not if you have the following distance to stop, but point taken: a crash decelerates you faster than breaks can and typical following distances are assuming breaking distance, not hard sudden halts.
So increase your following distance. It also has the benefit that it makes it easier to see what’s ahead of the car in front of you.
There’s pretty much no accident that’s unavoidable (barring someone else plowing into you) if you drive defensively enough (assuming good traction and good breaks, but obviously you should increase your following or decrease your speed to compensate for that as well)
Maintaining a stopping distance like that is nigh impossible in a dense urban area. You’d be constantly cut off and causing tons of traffic.
Really? I do it pretty frequently without issue…
You definitely do not.
Okay, random Internet person I’ve never met, you clearly know my driving habits and how things go when I’m commuting better than me.
I know math, so let’s do some of that:
The braking distance of a typical sedan at 70mph is 210 feet. Add another 70 feet for a reaction time and you’re talking about an entire football field of following distance. And that’s assuming you drive a sedan.
There’s simply no way you can maintain that in a dense urban environment. Other drivers will cut in front of you like a waterfall. It’s nothing to do with what kind of person you are.
Are you seriously driving at speeds of 70 mph in dense urban environments…?
Because, speaking as someone who has lived in many dense urban environments, that’s insane.
The only time you should reach those speeds is on the freeway, in which case, there’s no reason not to maintain safe distances, when at those speeds.