How to Protect Your Bubble

by SWERVE Driving School

Making sure you leave enough space in front of you, behind you and to the left and right of your vehicle makes a big difference in your ability to react quickly when something goes wrong. We call this "protecting your bubble." To start, make sure you leave enough following distance between your vehicle and the one in front of you.

• Instead of using a 2 second following distance, try staying back at least 3 seconds.
• To check this, pick a reference point on the road ahead (a pole, parked car, painted line on the road, etc.), and when the vehicle in front of you passes it begin counting, "one-elephant, two-elephants, three-elephants".
• If you pass the reference point before completing "three-elephants", you're following too closely. Ease off.