You're Stopping at Traffic Lights Wrong

Do you line up bumper-to-bumper when approaching a traffic light? Though driver training groups say it's a no-no likely to increase one's risk of a collision, researchers at the Virginia Tech College of Engineering say it's a "widely accepted" practice based on the idea that "the closer a car is to a traffic light, the more likely that car will be to pass through the intersection before the light turns red again." The science behind that: Well, there isn't any. 

After recording footage of 10 volunteer drivers at traffic lights, researchers say in a release that those who stopped close to cars in front of them, and therefore closer to traffic lights, gained no advantage over drivers who stopped at a distance of up to 25 feet, because the former group had to establish space before accelerating once the light turned green.

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