Tailgating is one of the biggest annoyances in traffic. It is a widespread European and international road-safety problem and not a Belgian or Dutch peculiarity. In the Netherlands, more than one in six motorists (16.2%) cite it as their primary source of irritation.

Next come making non-hands-free calls while driving (15.8%) and failing to use turn signals (15.2%). Almost half of all surveyed drivers cite one of these three violations as their biggest frustration on the road. The figures come from research by the comparison website Autoverzekering.nl.

Yet, traffic annoyances can easily be avoided. Keeping a safe distance, putting away your phone, and clearly signaling your intentions takes hardly any effort, but makes traffic both safer and more pleasant.

Gender-related?

However, traffic-related annoyances are not the same for everyone. For instance, it is primarily women who are irritated by tailgating, whereas for men, using a phone while driving tops the list of major traffic irritations.

These annoyances also vary depending on whether the driving takes place in urban or rural areas. In the largest Dutch cities, cyclists who fail to obey traffic rules are the biggest source of annoyance for most drivers. Traffic jams are also a greater source of annoyance in the three largest municipalities.

Not very courteous

Such behavior is not very courteous and highly dangerous. Research by the Walloon Agency for Road Safety (AWSR) has shown that failing to maintain a safe distance from the vehicle ahead, often combined with other factors, such as distraction, fatigue, or excessive speed, is one of the main causes of rear-end or chain collisions.

“By driving too close, the driver has insufficient distance to cope with sudden braking by the vehicle in front. It may then not be able to stop in time and hit it,” explains the AWSR. “Accidents due to failure to respect the safety distance cause an average of nearly 400 victims per year, including three deaths.”

The AWSR also analyzed why people tailgate. It turns out that one in four motorists (27%) admits that they sometimes stick the car in front to push the driver to accelerate or move over. One in three Walloon drivers (36%) also says they “stick the car in front of them to prevent another motorist from getting in.“

Vias study

In 2023, Vias conducted a huge observational study on Belgian motorways, measuring nearly 4 million passenger cars and 400,000 trucks and buses. The results were pretty striking: 58% of Belgian cars were following the vehicle ahead at less than two seconds.

And 27% were less than one second behind, which Vias explicitly classified as genuine tailgating. In the middle and left lanes, it was approximately one car in three.

Vias also found a major crash effect. On Belgian motorways, 33% of injury or fatal crashes were rear-end collisions, and another 21% were chain collisions. Vias estimates that about 70% of rear-end collisions involve insufficient following distance, usually in combination with speed, fatigue, or distraction.

The Dutch have even found a rather more memorable way of getting the message across. Sex-toy retailer EasyToys sends pink trucks onto the motorway carrying the slogan “Bumperkleven doe je maar in bed”, roughly: “Tailgating is something you should only do in bed.”

It may not be an official road-safety campaign, but as a reminder to keep your distance, it is certainly harder to ignore than the usual roadside sign.

So who is worse, Belgium or the Netherlands?

For tailgating: in Belgium, 58% were following the vehicle ahead at less than two seconds and 27% at less than one second on motorways. There is no equivalent recent Dutch national observation with which to compare it.

If we look at overall road safety rather than tailgating, Belgium recorded 464 road deaths in 2025, while the Netherlands recorded 759. Using the official 1 January 2025 populations of 11.83 million in Belgium and 18.04 million in the Netherlands, that is approximately 39 deaths per million inhabitants in Belgium versus 42 in the Netherlands.

So on the latest overall fatality rate, the Netherlands is currently slightly worse, despite its long-standing reputation as one of Europe’s safer transport countries. That does not, however, prove that Dutch motorists tailgate more.

Elsewhere in the world

The problem, however, is not inherently European. Rear-end crashes and inadequate following distances are a major road-safety issue in North America, Asia, and elsewhere too. That is one reason forward-collision warning and automatic emergency braking have become such important safety technologies.

The phenomenon is also difficult to study because countries measure following distance differently. Some use roadside observation, some police accident causation, others self-reporting, while many only register the collision type.