It looks like you're jumping between columns and sometimes transposing rows here. 125' @ 50 mph is from the raw braking distance column, 245' is from the same column but for 70 mph rather than 60 mph, and 439' @ 80 mph is from the overall stopping distance column. I'm not pointing this out just to nit, rather because:
> say the car in front of you on highway slams on their brakes, and they were travelling at 50mph, with you approaching at 60mph. Unless you are at least 120 ft behind them (vs the typical highway following distance of a few car lengths), you are going to be in a bad head-on collision.
You've concluded nearly twice the stopping footage as the table actually says and, as is more directly said in the last column, it's really roughly a 4 car braking length difference between the two speeds (including reaction time).
Umm.. yeah. Not sure how I botched up reading that quite so badly!
I think the point still stands though - by definition in an emergency situation there is not going to be much distance between you and that deer/whatever, and an extra 10mph can make all the difference!
> At 60 mph it's 245 ft
> At 80 mph it's 439 ft
It looks like you're jumping between columns and sometimes transposing rows here. 125' @ 50 mph is from the raw braking distance column, 245' is from the same column but for 70 mph rather than 60 mph, and 439' @ 80 mph is from the overall stopping distance column. I'm not pointing this out just to nit, rather because:
> say the car in front of you on highway slams on their brakes, and they were travelling at 50mph, with you approaching at 60mph. Unless you are at least 120 ft behind them (vs the typical highway following distance of a few car lengths), you are going to be in a bad head-on collision.
You've concluded nearly twice the stopping footage as the table actually says and, as is more directly said in the last column, it's really roughly a 4 car braking length difference between the two speeds (including reaction time).