I think half the speed in meters is the textbook answer in normal conditions.
Looking at some of the Police reports of road traffic accidents, and knowing what the weather was like that day, I suspect many drivers are incapable of distinguishing between good weather and bad weather conditions.
I think that is nonsense.
But I suspect that most people generally overestimate the distance they keep. In my car I can set a distance vehicle in front - and frankly the lowest distance you can set seems inappropriately low.
On the motorway:
It’s what @komsomolez wrote or leaving two seconds from when the vehicle in front passes a fixed point and you pass the same fixed point.
What you are suggesting is a distance of 3m +3m + 6m + 6m = 18m.
At 130Km/h it should be 65m which is more than three times what you think is safe!
Seriously?
FFS you ought to hand back you licence right now. You’re embarrassing yourself with your ignorance and lack of road safety awareness.
What’s nonsense? People driving too fast in heavy rain?
Or something else?
That they don’t know that conditions are bad. They are usually overestimating actual distance and their ability to react. The bad conditions issue is also something that usually is not practically thought in driving school and where driving safety course can be quite eye-opening.
Of course it is nonsense. It was (English) sarcasm.
As you say, they over-overestimating their abilities.
3m line + 6m spacing is very short. Sure about that? I also remember lines are longer in the motorway and shorter in the 50-60-80 kmh roads.
But that’s my memory. I guess I have to check the length of lines, there must be an ASTRA or even EU guideline somewhere on the internet. Or, I take a walk later and look at the motorway from an overpass 
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It’s like this in the UK, and in Germany:
Die Strichlänge ist abhängig von der erlaubten Geschwindigkeit. Sie reicht von 6 Metern auf Autobahnen bis zu 3 Metern auf Innerortsstraßen. Im engeren Knotenpunktbereich kann sie auch 1,5 oder 1,0 Meter betragen. Innerorts wird zur Verkehrsberuhigung in der Schweiz oft auf die Leitlinie verzichtet.
Not sure about Autostrasse and Autobahn but he’s right with <=60 and 80.
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Well, it’s time to laugh. Can I invite you a beer? After all, we live in Switzerland. Never had the pleasure to drive in the UK and in Germany the lines are blurry…sorry ;).
The info was under our noses the whole time. The Argovia Today article points to the cantonal court judgement SST.2024.85 of 21.08.2024. Once again, transparency strikes because court documents are public.
There’s a video recorded by the police and stills from that video were used to estimate the distance between cars based on the lines in the asphalt. Said lines are 6 meters long and 12 meters of spacing between them.
§ 5.3.2.1 First of all, it should be noted that the assessment of the size of the distance based on the length of the guidelines (i.c. 6 meters) and the spaces between them (i.c. 12 meters; Art. 73 para. 3 SSV in conjunction with sections 6.01-6.26 Appendix 1) cannot be criticized (cf. Federal Court judgments 6B_1382/2017 of 28 June 2018 E. 3; 6B_700/2010 of 16 November 2010 E. 1.5; 6B_3/2010 of 25 February 2010 E. 2).
So, how the distance was measured?
§ 5.3.2.2. The lower court has correctly described what can be seen on the video (UA act. 25) (lower court judgment E. 3.2.3). It shows that the accused followed the vehicle in front of him on the motorway at a very short distance for around 2,400 meters. Right at the beginning of the video (time 0:01) it can be seen that the distance between the two vehicles was only one guide line and a small part of the distance between two guide lines.
Further down in § 5.3.2.2.
These findings from the video correspond to the assessment of the police officers (UA act. 22) and that of the accused during his questioning on the day of the crime (March 23, 2023), where he estimated the distance to be less than two vehicle lengths (UA act. 23).
Additional circumstances presented in § 5.3.2.3. If understand well, the court also uses a 1/6 of the speed in kmh should be the minimum following distance in m. So, 120 kmh / 6 = 20m. They use this 1/6th of speed and the 2.4 km as the red line to determine the infraction.
By maintaining a distance of less than 1/6 of the speedometer for around 2400 meters, the accused created an increased abstract danger for the other road users and in particular for the driver in front of him. It is generally known that due to the high speeds on the motorway, even minor driving errors, a sudden braking maneuver by the vehicle in front or a brief moment of inattention can lead to accidents and subsequent accidents with fatal consequences. In view of this, the accused’s argument that he should not have expected the vehicle in front to brake does not hold water (grounds of appeal p. 15). The accused’s claim that there was no heavy traffic and that the road ahead of the vehicle in front of him was clear (grounds of appeal p. 15) is therefore incorrect. There were always different vehicles on both lanes (cars, cars with trailers, trucks) and at time 0:08 a car with a trailer moved into the overtaking lane immediately in front of the vehicle in front of the accused.
Thanks, I learned a lot. Lines are 6m long, the spacing 12m, what got the attention of the police is the less than 2 cars of separation, the aggravated circumstance is a slower car with a trailer blocking the overtaking lane 2 cars ahead.
Safe journeys!
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Yes, sorry, you are right for motorways.
As I wrote before, I notice a lot of tail-gating and cars following other cars really close for no reason with plenty of room to overtake on non-motorway roads.
Just to be clear - I’m on my bike. I’m just observing.
It’s not me driving with someone behind me!
But for motorways: 6+6+12+12= 36 which means you are driving almost half the distance behind another vehicle than you should so you’re not totally off the hook!
This is a behaviour particular to Switzerland - I’ve never noticed it on French motorways, for example.
The worst time here though was when I was cycling downhill along a straight empty road at around 70km/h and a car drove up behind me and stayed literally 50cm from my rear wheel all the way down.
There was nothing I could do - I certainly couldn’t speed up and I couldn’t slow down as they were so close.
I would have gone under their car if I had had to brake suddenly.
They overtook at the bottom of the hill, laughing but could have done so any time before that.
I was too much in shock to take their licence plate but even if I had reported it, nothing would have happened.
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I’ve seen more and more cyclists with cameras, often with one on the handlebars and one mounted facing backwards on the helmet. Maybe if you even put a dummy one on you it would discourage people from being arseholes.
Yeah, by the rule shared by komsomolez, following distance in => half of speed in kmh, that would be 60m in the motorway.
I’ll drive later today and look at cars and lines again.
I’ve got one now.
Not sure the Police would act on it though, unless I had been maimed or killed.
In the UK, you can upload your video footage of an incident to a Police server and drivers have got prosecuted for it - with quite severe fines etc if they have not acceptable the original fine.
At least one anti-cycling judge has got into trouble for dismissing the evidence from a cyclist.
There has been a lot of uproar on Twitter(X) from drivers over cyclists doing this but in reality, there are many more drivers reporting other drivers using dash-cams than there are cyclists reporting drivers.
Ideally, you need two cameras - one on the back and one on the front but many of them are really pricey.
For leisure rides, I try and avoid roads as much as possible now and if you use an App such as Komoot
It can plot a route using cycle paths, very minor roads and gravel tracks, where possible -even for rides of many hours.
The autobahn (at least the A1) have distance counters in the middle, they’re 100m apart. The poles with reflectors on the right (beyond the emergency lane) are 50m apart. You could use either to reliably gauge your distance.
Theoretically both should be omnipresent but with the current upgrade of the aluminium barriers from single rail to double rail, sometimes raised double rail, there may be gaps.
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As ex-highway patrol, I love reading posts like this 
I am also not a fan of fixed cameras, especially those in ZH, GE, and LU that are purely there for revenue.
As a note, please be careful of posting speed camera locations in open forums or even FB groups…it is actually illegal in Switzerland!!
I was cycling along a road and saw somebody in from of a concrete sign. At first I thought it was a photographer with a tripod but as I got closer, I saw that it was a policeman cartoonishly pressed against the sign to stay out of sight and hiding to catch cars with his radar.
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Getting a bill through the post when passing one of these is optional.
It’s a choice that you, as a driver, are making.
Is sharing the link to the cantonal website where they publish the location of radars illegal?