N.J.S.A. 39:4-89, explained.

The rule is one sentence: don't follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent, having due regard to the speed of the vehicle ahead, the traffic, and the condition of the highway. There is no car-lengths formula and no seconds rule in the statute — "reasonable and prudent" is the whole test, judged on the actual speed, traffic, and road that day.

One exception has a hard number: a motor truck traveling outside a business or residential district may not follow another motor truck within 100 feet — though overtaking and passing is expressly allowed. For CDL drivers that rule pairs with a second trap: the payable schedule doesn't let a commercial license holder mail this ticket in at all. A CDL 39:4-89 means a court appearance — and given what the conviction does to a driving career, that appearance should be used, not endured. See our CDL defense page.

A large share of 39:4-89 tickets are written after a rear-end collision, by an officer who arrived after it happened. In that posture the charge usually rests on an inference — car B hit car A, therefore car B must have been following too closely. The statute doesn't work that way: the state still has to prove the following distance was unreasonable under the conditions, and sudden stops, cut-ins, weather, and traffic waves are all part of those conditions. A 5-point conviction is too expensive to concede to an inference.

Most represented cases resolve in a conference with the prosecutor rather than a trial, many as amendments to lesser or no-point violations such as unsafe driving under 39:4-97.2 — never guaranteed, and nobody is obligated to offer it. In most routine cases an attorney can appear for you under Rule 7:12-3, so fighting the ticket usually doesn't mean a day off work. What a fought case looks like from hire to result is on our traffic-defense page.