A total of 529 motorists were penalised by Cheshire Constabulary last year for bad driving habits, including tailgating.
“The figures highlight the need for drivers to keep bad habits in check,” said Brett Dixon, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, a not-for-profit organisation which holds Injury Prevention Day on August 16.
“On this Injury Prevention Day we will step up our campaign encouraging drivers to ‘back off’ from the car in front. Driving too close, or ‘tailgating’, is a bad habit of which many drivers are guilty. It is incredibly dangerous, as well as anti-social, and can be really intimidating for other drivers.
“When in traffic drivers are advised to leave enough space so that they can see the tarmac between their car and the car in front.
“In the UK we have 50% more traffic per kilometre than the European average - this, coupled with bad driving habits, could cause needless collisions, injuries which should have been avoided and claims on your insurance.
“Some injuries could easily be avoided if drivers backed off and left a bit more room,” said Mr Dixon.
Martin Milliner, director of claims at LV=, added: “On a regular basis we see claims coming through that could have easily been avoided if only drivers had adopted a safer approach.
“With tailgating in particular, many of us have probably found ourselves in a situation where we might perhaps have been driving too close to the car in front or the car behind has been too close to your bonnet.
“Encouraging drivers to stop doing this and getting them to “back off” is something we believe is very important and we welcome APIL’s campaign to tackle this.”
