Am I driving wrong? Coasting to a stop vs. last-second hard braking
Hey everyone, genuine question about driving habits here in Auckland.
Say you're on a side street coming up to a give-way or stop sign at a main road. There are no cars ahead of you.
My approach: I take my foot off the accelerator early, coast, and do a slow, mild brake to a smooth stop.
What I see everyone else doing: Maintaining 50km/h right up until the intersection and braking hard at the very last second.
I’ve been noticing this last-second braking happening more and more lately across the city.
I’ve always done the first method because it saves wear and tear on my brake pads and saves a bit of fuel. But honestly, my main reason is predictability.
When I’m driving on a main road and I see a car barreling toward the intersection from a side street without slowing down, it scares the hell out of me. It looks like they aren't paying attention and are about to T-bone me. Easing off the gas early changes your car's "body language" and clearly tells the cross-traffic, “I see the intersection and I am stopping.”
Seeing how incredibly common this aggressive late-braking method has become is making me second-guess myself. Am I the weird one for coasting? Isn't slow deceleration exactly what we were all taught to do when learning to drive?
Curious to hear if anyone else has noticed this getting worse out there, or if I'm just overthinking it.