*** Quoting Mark Raciborski from a message to Carol Shenkenberger ***
->
-> For it to be 7 ft, you'd have to be going no more than about 5MPH on
-> pavement. .  This is why the person who re-ends another is almost
-> at  fault.
MR> I am refering to the distance after you've stoped and your siting
Oh!  Sorry, didnt catch that the first time.
Yes, 7 ft is fine, stopped at a stop light. More might be slightly better if 
on an upsloped hill because the one in front *might* have a clutch 
transmission and need a little room for 'slippage'.
MR> there, i was taught that as long as you could see the tires of the car
MR> infront of you touch the ground you were ok at a stop light. I've got
Sortof.  I used to have a clutch type car, so I know on a *slope* to give 
more room than that. More than once, I had to put on the brake, get out of 
the car, and go back to ask a person to back up a bit.  I admit though, most 
of the time when that happened, they were closer than 7ft _or_ it was a 
serious 'slope' involved.
Sadly, there is experience in my house with stopped cars being thrown 
forward.  Its the main reason my husband doesnt drive. When I'm finished 
recounting it, you wont blame him at all.
In 1968, when Don came home from Vietnam, (Airborne, all the way!) he relaxed 
a bit and worked at a store a friend ran.  Fishing tackle stuff.  (Don builds 
nice lures from scratch and is a great person to fix your reels etc).  Work 
started at 9am, but he likes to go in early, start coffee, relax a bit etc.
So, at 7:45 am, in Miami Florida, he was driving slowly and carefully to 
work.  He came to a child school crossing before a gradeschool.  He stopped 
normally, and watched the kids start to cross.
BOOM!  Drunk driver (at 7:45am?  Rare but happens).
Needless to say, Don's car was tossed into the crosswalk, full of elementary 
children.
He refuses to drive to this day.  I don't have it in my heart to push the 
issue.  When you marry a man, you take him warts and all, and you love his 
warts if you have any sense in your soul, because the man has reasons for 
them if ya know what I mean.
                                       xxcarol
PS to make it topical, Don was absolved of *all* of it legally.  Fact is, 
none of the parents even tried to go after him for the deaths.  God help the 
soul of that drunk though....
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