If you can read this, you're following too closely.

I was driving home on the interstate today, and as per usual, traffic started backing up near my exit. As I am proud to say, I am a very safe driver. I allow myself extra room and I don't tailgate. Other people are not quite as competent.

While driving, I had to do somewhat of a hard brake because traffic all of the sudden came to a halt. Since I had given myself enough room, no prob. I look in my rearview and the guy/gal behind me is approaching very quickly. I see him stop just as he was inches from my bumper. I don't know what happened after that except I heard lots of screeching and saw people swerving off to the shoulder. And after I started to pull away, I saw the car behind me, and the one behind him pull off to the shoulder.

Using my deductive reasoning skills, I surmised that at least 2, if not 3 cars behind me ended up colliding. Normally, I would feel obligated to pull over as well, but since I didn't actually see what happened, I'd likely be useless. Not to mention, the shoulder in that section of road is barely wide enough for 1 car, so had I pulled over, I might not have been involved in that accident but would certainly have been involved in a different one shortly.

And I can rest assured knowing I didn't cause the accident. Because I didn't screech my tires or have to swerve and stopped in plenty of time. It's the crazies behind me that have to deal with it.

And actually, I'm not even sure there was an accident with the car behind me, because he was so close to me, that had he been hit, he would have hit me. So maybe he was the car in front of the accident and stopped to help. Or maybe there was no accident at all.

But the moral of the story: keep your distance.