Highway code stopping distances.

05/02/2008 by dave.

I was just watching this video of 5th gear reviewing the new Mazda 2 on youtube, and its got me thinking about stopping distances.

Now, in the clip Jason Plato is testing the new Mazda’s acceleration, handling and stopping in several tests. The test that interests me is the last test of braking. Jason accelerates to 70mph heading towards a designated point, and when at that point hits the brakes hard to bring the little hatch to a stop as quickly as possible. This is a simple test, and no means a scientific one, but is effective at showing the little cars stopping performance.

Now, the Mazda 2 manages to stop dead in just 25 metres. That’s with just Jason in the car. Then he continues to do the test again with the extra weight of 200kg in the car (in the safe of strong man Terry Holland) and the Mazda 2 manages to come to a stop in 41 metres. This in itself shows the benefit of shedding weight when it comes to performance, but that’s not my point.

My point is this, below is a chat showing the ‘typical stopping distances’ stated in today’s Highway Code:

As you can see, the ‘typical’ stopping distance stated by the highway code is (excluding the thinking time) 75 metres. But, as you can see from the Mazda 2 test, new cars can stop in a third of that distance. and even with an extra 200kg of weight it stopped in almost half that time.

I know that there are still some old cars on the road in the UK (I drive a 17 year old car), but I doubt even these cars would be that much worse then the Mazda (the Mazda even has drum brakes on the rear).

So, when were the current highway code stopping distance last checked, and how accurate are they?? Do we even need to know them, as every car will be different depending on the wear on the drakes, tyres etc, and the amount of people in the car, and even the luggage in the boot.

I’d say that having stopping times in the theory test is a massive waste of time, given that the information will never be used by those taking the test, and are not even accurate.

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