An Iowa lawmaker who’s also a state trooper is proposing a bill to better define when motorists are guilty of tailgating in the highway.

Current law says drivers are to follow other vehicles at a prudent and reasonable distance.

“The concern is just literally following too close. A lot of our accidents are caused by people who are literally driving too close to one another,” Representative Zach Dieken of Granville told Radio Iowa.

Drivers can be ticketed for following another vehicle too closely, but Dieken, who’s been a state trooper for 13 years, said Iowa law doesn’t properly define tailgating. “To try to explain that to a magistrate on the stand or even a violator on the side of the road I think becomes problematic because everybody can have a different definition of what is prudent,” Dieken said, “especially when you’re on the receiving end of a traffic stop or a citation, prudent is maybe a little bit different than what the trooper or the (police) officer is considering prudent.”

Dieken’s bill says under clear conditions on an Iowa highway, motorists are to drive at least 25 feet behind another vehicle when the speed limit is 35 miles per hour and at least 150 feet when the posted speed limit is between 55 and 65 miles an hour. For the interstates, where the speed limit goes up to 70, the bill indicates at least 200 feet is the prudent distance between vehicles.

Dieken says those are the current guideposts for troopers who issue tickets to tailgathers and those calculations are based on how long it takes not necessarily to come to a complete stop, but to avoid a collision. Dieken is hoping the bill gives driver’s ed instructors guidance that’s based on feet, rather than seconds between vehicles.

“When I was in middle school it was how many “Mississippis” or light poles and that kind of thing,” Dieken said. “Hopefully this is going to define an actual distance we need to be driving.”

The bill cleared a subcommittee this morning and is eligible for consideration in the House Transportation Committee.

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