The average reaction time to cars in front of you is roughly a second. If you are going 70mph, it will take you approximately 6-7 car lengths to recognize they slammed on their brakes. They would also be going a slower speed than you. At that point you’d better pray your brakes are better than theirs.

Tailgating the shit out of people, as many people in this state do, causes traffic. It causes the entire highway to yo yo. This makes everything even more worse than it already is. They are anticipating the person in front of them breaking for a second and then accelerating, which is what normally happens.