The Impact of the Safe following Distance onto the Traffic Safety

This paper provides an analysis of the values of safety distance between the two moving vehicles, based on the parameters of the behaviour of young drivers. The main objective of this research was to determine the driver's response time for braking manoeuvre (BRT) in car-following situations. The test results were used to verify certain recommendations for the vehicle driving parameters, the principles of driver's performance to increase road traffic safety, etc. The driver's response times, determined during the testing in the simulator, were used to assess the recommended values of the safe following distance under different road conditions and various ways of driver behaviour. In the paper, for different values of BRT a safety distance in emergency traffic situations was determined.