The manual says to avoid driving side-by-side with another vehicle. Why?
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A.
It violates the state's minimum following-distance rule.
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B.
You may end up in another driver's blind spot. Correct
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C.
Your car loses fuel efficiency running in tight formation.
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D.
It confuses drivers approaching from behind you.
The answer is "You may end up in another driver's blind spot."
The manual gives the reason plainly: you may end up in another driver's blind spot, where they cannot see you if they need to change lanes. Choice A reads as the right kind of answer to a driver who mentally files every 'space around your car' rule under following distance, since that is the first spacing rule most drivers learn and it crowds out the sideways version.
The traps in the wrong answers
A. It violates the state's minimum following-distance rule.
Following distance measures the gap behind another car, not the gap next to one. Treats following distance as covering every gap around the car, since that is the first spacing rule taught in driver's ed, and stretches a front-only rule sideways.
C. Your car loses fuel efficiency running in tight formation.
Fuel efficiency is not the reason for this city-driving rule; the manual's warning is about being beside another vehicle, especially where that driver may not see you. Carries over a highway-convoy drafting idea and applies it to a city-driving warning that is about visibility, not aerodynamics.
D. It confuses drivers approaching from behind you.
The manual's concern with side-by-side driving is the vehicle beside you, not the one behind you. Reads the warning through the rear-view mirror, since drivers picture side-by-side risk as who might rear-end them and miss that the danger sits in the neighboring lane.
This question tests your knowledge of Lane Changes & Merging in North Carolina. Source: North Carolina Driver Handbook, "City Driving," p.63..
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