I had been searching for a word that explains a driving practice that saves me fuel economy, and think I have a completely new and different use for the term "horizon scanning." When I am driving on a road with more than one car in front of me, when the speed of traffic is constant between the car in front of me, for a long enough duration, I will do what's called "horizon scanning" in front of that car to see what's ahead of that car, or ahead of the car ahead of the one in front of me. The reason is that I can react to a slowing of the speed by using the brakes or lessening the amount of on the gas pedal because the car in front of me will need to slow down too.
What this has is the indirect and somewhat unintentional effect of causing the cars behind me to switch lanes, thinking they will be able to get around an upcoming traffic slowdown, even when it affects both lanes (I usually try to avoid slowing down if I am in the left lane, and sometimes wait to move to the right lane longer than others might). Anyways, the drivers who do pass tend not to realize that the reason I am slowing down is because I am horizon scanning beyond the two cars ahead, and sometimes they end up having to brake way too close to the last second, because it's obvious they didn't look beyond the car in front of them.
I had been searching for a word that explains a driving practice that saves me fuel economy, and think I have a completely new and different use for the term "horizon scanning." When I am driving on a road with more than one car in front of me, when the speed of traffic is constant between the car in front of me, for a long enough duration, I will do what's called "horizon scanning" in front of that car to see what's ahead of that car, or ahead of the car ahead of the one in front of me. The reason is that I can react to a slowing of the speed by using the brakes or lessening the amount of on the gas pedal because the car in front of me will need to slow down too.
What this has is the indirect and somewhat unintentional effect of causing the cars behind me to switch lanes, thinking they will be able to get around an upcoming traffic slowdown, even when it affects both lanes (I usually try to avoid slowing down if I am in the left lane, and sometimes wait to move to the right lane longer than others might). Anyways, the drivers who do pass tend not to realize that the reason I am slowing down is because I am horizon scanning beyond the two cars ahead, and sometimes they end up having to brake way too close to the last second, because it's obvious they didn't look beyond the car in front of them.