June 09, 2005

• That's great, except that one time you flash a cop. I think it would be too great a temptation. A friend of mine had a red light that sat on the dashboard of his car. It illuminated when you plugged it into the cigarette lighter (or, in this day and age, "accessory power outlet"). Once someone was going far too slowly on the highway, so he plugged and unplugged it a few times in a flashing pattern. The person ahead pulled over, and he got away as quickly as possible. Power corrupts, even power that can get you arrested for impersonating a police officer (or, in this case, fireman). Fortunately, he was not caught, and removed the light from his car.
• I got the impression that this justs flashes a design in the window rather than imitate police lights.
• I would prefer something that turned the back window into a mirrored reflective sheet at the flick of a switch. Then when the SUV with its bright lights on pulls right up behind you and refuses to dim, you could say, CLICK! RIGHT BACK ATCHA! It might cause a few accidents, but that's a risk I'm willing for them to take.
• this would get you killed on the highway in Michigan.. You would have to be nuts to illuminate that, especially since you have NO IDEA as to what car is behind you (after all, they have bright lights on, right, you can't see anything).. stupid, stupid idea.... just shoot the sucker, then you don't have to worry about it...
• rolypolyman, you are right. I just threw in the story because it seemed good. You'd be ticketed or similar for obscenity or contributing to road rage for the Defiant Digit. The red light was much worse.
• For those looking for alternatives to the electric finger, I will take this opportunity to present my tailgater response levels: level 1. Slow down at a convenient passing spot Surprisingly, some people will still prefer to ride your wake than to pass you. Other times you may not feel like being this responsible. Procede to ... level 2. Left blinker. Turn it on, leave it on. Amazingly effective! Especially so when the tailgater is an 18 wheeler going up a hill (takes forever for them to get back up to speed). Eventually, however, they will catch on. Then it is time to either go back to level 1, or ... level 3. Drunken weave. Nothing says 'woah, not too close buddy' better than an apparent inability to stay between the white and yellow lines. For added effect, raise some gravel dust from the roadside. If this doesn't work (and doesn't get you arrested), it does make level 1 VERY effective. Otherwise... level 4. Pull over, take a break. It's not worth the whiplash to hit the breaks, so just grab a cup of coffee, take a nap, or whatever. That's it! Time tested on my 74 mile (each way!) commute over 4 years.
• Whoa, Stomper! You are my hero. I'm thinking the 50 plus miles I'm doing right now suck. Seems like I'm either working or sleeping. (oh, wait, I do piss away a large block of time on the intarweb)
• Actually HuronBob, the same sign could possibly kill you in my hometown, LA, CA, the home of drive by shooting. For me though, if I was to do something like this, I'd be a bit more explicit. I would prefer a straight "fuck you" in bright red.
• Excellent advice stomper! Perhaps a good comment to copy over here. If my memory serves me, I recall seeing something similar to this device before. It had a LED display that had pre-programmed smart-ass comments to display to the driver behind. When I was young and living in South Dakota, one of my friends kept his windshield washer fluid tank stocked with his urine. He improvised clear tubing from the windshield washer nosle so that it would shoot a stream of liquid directly behind his car. He literally took a piss on agressive drivers that annoyed the hell out of him. Needless to say, he seemed to thoroughly enjoy doing that. The cars that got hit probably had no clue what was streaming across their windshield...
• squid... my son moved out to the LA area about 5 years ago.. I had never been there before.. I dreaded driving there on the first visit, given all the stories I had heard.. Once I got used to the sheer volume of traffic you have out there, I realized that folks in L.A. drive better, are more reasonable, and are actually more polite than the jerks here in Michigan. I've come to speculate that in Michigan we are just beginning to experience a faulty, inadequate highway infrastructure, and everyone is intolerant and aggravated by the terrible commute we now have... whereas out in the land of asphalt where you are, you've all gotten used to it and have decided not to go nuts trying to fight it.... I would rather drive in L.A. than Ann Arbor! The really crazy ones out there are the bikers doing 60 mph plus between two lines of stopped cars...they wouldn't live five minutes doing that here!
• HB, I've never been to LA, but have experienced driving in Ann Arbor. Having been through a couple of times, I can attest to your Michigan experiences. My best friend grew up in Detroit. The first time I ever visited he boasted, "hell, we don't pay attention to any of the rules or signs!" To prove his point, he blew through about 20 red stop lights and countless stop signs on a 30 minute excursion.
• That's some good advice stomper. I've done 1 and 3 before, but 2 is absolute genius. I wouldn't want to do number 4 after a little 1-3, I'd be afraid the guy'd pull over behind me and want to beat the shit out of me. Although, I suppose in that case, I can wait for him to walk away from his car a good distance, then I can speed off. Muahaha.
• Conversely, you could use a Thanks Tail to express appreciation for courteous driving. Check out the little QT movie at the bottom.
• Clearly, that link should have been labeled as NSFW! Oops, was that a tail wagging? My bad.
• I think that everyone's license plate number should be their cell phone number.
• Um, actually - I find the best way to get rid of tailgaters is to speed up. I know, I know - madness. But the fact is that you're obviously in the way, so do the polite thing and either get out of the way or speed up a bit. Cold hard logic is so sweet sometimes. And free.
• Yes, because speeding is the best thing to do, especially on foggy or dark highways. If they have hairpin turns, all the better! I was once in a car being tailgated along a highway that was pitch-black, had hairpin turns, and was also a major throughfare for logging trucks. We were already doing the speed limit - there was no way in hell we were speeding up, and there was nowhere to pull off.
• The tail is funny, but it doesn't bend down enough to be clear, and unfortunately when it wags side to side it looks more like someone shaking a finger in annoyance or shaking their head to say "no" than like a happy dog. (Maybe that's just a North American thing.)
• jb: Well, in case it's a dark and foggy road with hairpin turns, I guess you had better flip someone off with a lighted display in your rear window. :) That seems much more logical than doing your best to either find a way to remove the obstacle (yourself) or live with the tailgater until you can pull over. All I'm saying is that you're better off resolving or ignoring the issue than escalating it with an antagonistic display.
• Or how about people just don't tailgate in the first place? It should be a bloody crime. It's deadlier than pot.
• Lighting up an electric middle digit is just about the worst thing that you could posibly do when being tailgated. The person tailgating you has already displayed that they are both inconsiderate, and incredibly stupid. The LAST thing you want to do with a self-involved moron is exacerbate an already dangerous situation. As a defensive driver, the one thing that you have absolutely no control over is someone who is following too closely. There is only ONE correct solution. You pull over, and let them pass. Your judgement is badly impaired by your emotions. Leave them at home. Driving is a serious business, there is no room for ego and one-upmanship in the task.
• Yeah, I never suggested flipping a bird was a good idea. But neither is speeding up. You keeping driving at the speed limit - if you can safely pull over, you do (or they pull around), but if you can't they just have to suck it up and drive legally at the speed limit.
• Speed limits are false measures of safety. Increasing your speed a few mph above the posted limit does not endanger lives, contrary to popular programming. Just saying...
• I've had a Defiant Digit for a while now. All I can tell you from experience is that there have been no incidents of road rage or any kind of retaliation. In all the times that I used it, tailgaters immediately back off, most of the time, they are laughing hysterically! I've also had incidents when they motion to me to find out where I got it and one guy wanted to buy it out of my car! I live in the New York Suburbs with some of the craziest drivers and never had a situation. For all you woosies out there, afraid of their own shadows, I see on the Defiant Digit website, a new version with a smiley face that glows. Sort of a "Back Off" message with "Have a nice day" attached. I have also found out that they are coming out with a couple more versions that don't have a middle finger, but still work well to keep tailgaters at bay.
• geekpdx - When car designers say that something is designed to crash at a certain speed, they mean it. When road designers make roads, they make them for certain speeds. Those speed limits are not arbitrary. Accidents at high speeds are more likely to kill pedestrians and car occupants. An Australian study estimates that "a driver travelling at 75 km/h in a 60 km/h speed limit area has a risk of being involved in a casualty crash that is 10 times greater than that of a driver travelling at 60 km/h." You should not drive less than the speed limit, because this creates its own problems, but the fact is that even a few miles over the speed limit does increase the chances of death, especially to pedestrians. Unfotunately, I fear that your position is the popularly programmed one. I could only wish that people did understand that speeding is inherently dangerous. Higher speeds also mean less time to react, but speeders are the least likely to leave enough room to react, thus our problem with tailgating. You can go on believing that speed limits are a big government conspiracy, and you can find plenty of drivers' advocates websites to support this with spurious claims that "statistics lie" (they don't - I know statisticians, and they take their work very seriously). But I would prefer that if you believe that, that you never get behind the wheel of a car.
• Most of the reliable references I came across were for urban arterial roads - if any one knows of studies on the relationship of speed and highway driving, that would be good. All I know is that highways are designed for certain speeds (thus the degree of curves in turns, etc) and cars as well (how much impact the car is designed to take in its crumple zones).
• Those speed limits are not arbitrary. Counterpoint: Jimmy Carter.
• I don't know any thing about Jimmy Carter (other than that he was too good and honest a man to succeed in politics). You might have noticed, but not everyone here is American or, indeed, above 30. If you can come up with some studies, let me know.
• I don't know any thing about Jimmy Carter That's obvious.
• The Carter who you praise so abundantly (even as you disclaim any knowledge of his actual policies) made permanent a temporary Nixon order reducing the speed limit on the US Interstates from 70mph to 55mph. The Nixon order was a measure for rationing gasoline, in short supply in the wake of the OPEC embargo as gas prices rose to the then-shocking US$1.20 a (U.S.) gallon. Carter justified his move partly on safety arguments, citing a decline in the fatality rate on U.S. highways in the wake of Nixon's order. Yes, driving at 55mph is less dangerous (involves less risk of injury or vehicle damage) than driving at 70mph, even on Interstates originally designed for 70mph traffic half a century ago (though you also must consider system effects beyond the local). But by that argument, a mandated maximum of 35mph would be even safer, allowing increased reaction time and reducing the forces involved in a collision (whether between tire and road, vehicle and vehicle, or fender and ribcage). How about 20mph, which was plenty fast enough for my great-grandparents? What level of risk is acceptable in highway driving? At some point we either accept a certain area under the risk curve or else collapse into immobility. The size of that area is a societally dictated, arbitrary, and hence politically debatable choice. An acceptably "safe" speed on a given road is a function of the design of the road, the properties of both the vehicle and the driver navigating the road, the other occupants of the road, and adjacent non-road elements such as pedestrians, schools, baby ducks, et cetera. Frequently, too, the posted speed limit bears a close relationship to that safe speed for an aggregate of those values, though the Carter-era speed cap had nothing to do with any such calculation—his safety argument was post hoc. I welcome fixed speed limits as an enforceable option that people can learn, and I often abide closely by those limits. However, if the weather's right, if I know the road, and if there's nobody else on the road (which means: rural highway, usually early morning), I will violate that limit. Flagrantly. Exuberantly. By your definition, dangerously. Driving is inherently dangerous. Abiding by a posted legal speed limit on a road does not make it safe.
• I drive fast. And I could be viewed as occasionally tailgating. I understand well that you are in the fast lane doing the speed limit because that is the law and you can drive in any lane you want, etc. etc. BUT that is small comfort when I come over that rise at 105 and you are in the fast lane at 55. I'll slow down, don't freak out, but it's going to take a bit of road and if you tap on those brakes, I could end up in your lap. It's ok to go slow - just realize that there are those of us who go fast. It was ever thus. We don't want to hurt anyone, we just want you to give way and move over to the right for a moment so we can get by, that's all. It's not a contest - I let people pass me all the time, and my ego is none the worse for wear. Plus it's a nice thing to do.
• monkeyfilter: Flagrantly. Exuberantly. By your definition, dangerously.
• hey we need another tagline roundup FPP!
• Someone's been wiki-ing them.
• What I said about Carter came right from someone who wrote his political science Ph.D. thesis on the U.S. Presidency. He studied every president from Washington to Clinton, and wrote over 400 pages on them. Forgive me if I give his opinion on their characters a bit more credance than Regan-era propaganda.
• How many pages? Over four hundred, you say?