The Accordian Effect. These generation one files were found by accessing Dr. james Home Page and then clicking on the traffic psychology link and then on the generation one files. After that, I chose the files that I wanted to look at, clicked on their Home Pages and then on to their lab reports. Tailgating is practice that is used quite often by drivers in many different situations. Drivers who are in a hurry to get somewhere, usually because they are late for something, use it to try to get the people in front of them to go faster or to make them get out of the way.
Aggressive drivers use it in the same way but for a different reason.
No speed limit is ever fast enough for them so they want to try to get everyone else to speed up or get out. Sometimes a driver is going at, or under, the posted speed limit and others use it to call that fact to the attention of the offending driver. Other times it is used as a form of revenge on somone who cut you off or did something to offend you. And then there are the people who do it just for fun or just for the sake of doing it. These people are either too stupid to know, or don't really care, about the possible dangers that are involved when tailgating.