On a city street you should be looking ahead of you as far as?

Question

On a city street you should be looking ahead of you as far as?

Answer 1

Smith Driving recommends looking ahead 15 seconds.  This means if you're traveling 25 mph, look ahead (25/60 x .25 = 0.1 miles) or about 500 feet.

A rough rule of thumb, look ahead 200 feet for every 10 mph.  If you're going 60, that's 1200 feet, 1320 feet is a quarter mile and 15 seconds is a quarter minute.  This gives you a view of all the traffic you're likely to encounter in the next few seconds and formulate safe ways to manuever through it.

While it's pretty much impossible to do so, they also recommend following with a 4 second gap, which doubles the old 2 second gap we were taught as young drivers.

Answer 2

"Oiler" sounds right on the money.  I had a "Defensive Driving" course years ago, best driving school I have had, and I remember the instructor asking how many "red lights" could I see.  His point was to know what was ahead at all times.