Methods for determining and reporting vehicle following distance

A method for generating following distance data over time for a subject vehicle, the method comprising:

• accessing a set of images, each image of the set of images being from a perspective of the subject vehicle and including a respective representation of another vehicle positioned in front of the subject vehicle, and each image of the set of images being associated with a respective time;
• generating following distance data based on at least a subset of images in the set of images, comprising:
• for each image in the subset of images, determining a respective physical distance between the subject vehicle and the other vehicle;
• and
• compiling the following distance data over time as a plurality of following distance data points, each following distance data point representing the determined physical distance for a respective image in the subset of images and the time associated with the respective image in the subset of images;
• generating simplified following distance data, comprising:
• identifying select data points from the following distance data for inclusion in the simplified following distance data, based on differences between the data points and iteratively-defined reference lines through portions of the following distance data;
• and
• compiling the select data points as the simplified following distance data, excluding data points which are not identified as select data points;
• and
• outputting the simplified following distance data.