Driving pro-tips

My car does that. It also has a camera on the right side view mirror that automatically turns on if you signal a right turn. It’s great for seeing pedestrians, bicyclists, or cars in the blind spot. I kind of wish it had one for the left side too.

I learned it as one car length per 10mph of speed. Hard going 80 on the highway but I try…

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If you do that around here someone will jump into the space between you and the car in front of you.

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I had to turn off that feature on my car. I had too many times where I’d do a lane change, flip the turn signal lever back to center and it would overshoot and trigger the “flash multiple times” in the other direction. And then it was a scramble to get it to stop, which often caused me to overshoot back in the first direction.

I don’t know if my car has the option that when you step on the brake it flashes the brake lights a few times, but I would turn that off, too. This allows me to provide a steady brake light for normal slowing or stopping, and then to tap the brakes about three times quickly if I’m signalling to the people behind me that traffic ahead of me is slowing/stopping unexpectedly.

I’m a firm believer in assured clear distances. Pretty much any time I can get it, someone dives into the space created. Annoying.

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AFAIK, that isn’t standard on any car. I haven’t done research, but I’d love if that was not strictly legal. It is horribly annoying in stop & go traffic. Also, in the ones I’ve seen, the flash rate is notably faster than a turn signal or hazard lights, so I’ve always wondered if that would trigger an epileptic*. I know that in me, it triggers the urge to beat the car and driver with a bat.

*She doesn’t talk about it, so I don’t know any details, but I know my mom had some level of epilepsy as a child.

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When purchasing a dash cam, get one with two cameras (one front, one back) and get the largest possible storage you can get for it.

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The flashing brake lights when applying the brake seems to have originated on motorcycles, where the flashing is very useful for visibility purposes. I’m planning on converting my bike to flashing brake lights on the main taillight eventually.

Somewhere on this forum somebody was moaning about flashing LED’s… maybe use these? :rofl:

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Guys, do NOT slow down or stop in front of a truck, especially during the wee-wee hours of the morning.

Trafiic was a futtup this morning on the R21. The reason - a truck drove into one from the back and at a high speed. Sensitive viewers can skip the pictures.

Spoiler added due to the gory nature of things (no body parts thou)

Wow, that is really bad. I’d say it was Really Horrible™ if it wasn’t already trademarked :wink:

I’m going to assume that the truck driver did not survive.

Correct.

There is absolutely no way somebody could have survived that kind of accident plus being squashed inbetween a truck and trailer.

I’ll keep my eyes open for any updates regarding that accident, and will update.

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Your original post, @RRabbit42, sounds just like a highway in our area (which makes sense, since we’re in the same state :laughing:). We got rear-ended a couple months ago because three people behind me did not realize that part of the highway slows down randomly that time of day, in the sun, and didn’t stop in time. The guy behind me stopped barely in time (he was a Marine from TX, in a Dodge Ram), the girl behind him barely stopped in time (also Navy, from VA, in a Subaru station wagon), and the guy behind all of them (either Navy or DoD, in another big pickup) did not stop in time and smashed the Subaru, who got her bumper stuck under the hitch on the truck in front of her, who bumped me (minimal damage, thank goodness—the boys were in the van with me).

Turns out the guy who hit us all was driving a truck that belonged to the Navy. He totaled the Subaru (so sad!), but the driver of the Subaru never knew why I had to slow to a stop, because by the time we were getting out of our vehicles and talking to the police, the traffic event had cleared. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but I expect none of them were used to how our highways work here. I barely stopped before hitting the car in front of me, so I was really disappointed that I got hit from behind.

One moral from this story: Just don’t follow closely if you can’t see in front of you. If you do not know the traffic patterns in your area and cannot see a mile ahead, give lots of space, no matter what lane you’re in.

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Got nudged gently from behind on a Thursday morning. (Keep in mind we drive on the left side as opposed to the right side).

I was at a busy intersection on Thursday morning, and waited for a gap in the traffic so that I can turn left. A small-ish gap appeared, and then I felt a gentle nudge.

Lady behind me was entirely apologetic, but there was no damage whether visible or cosmetic, so I decided to let it go.

This sort of thing happen when you don’t focus on the car in front of you, but instead of oncoming traffic. I rather focus on the car in front of me, and when it’ve toddled off, then I will check whether it is safe for me to proceed or not.

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A few more tips.

If it’s rainy and/or dark, even if you can’t see the second vehicle in front of you, you can still sometimes see what they’re doing if their brake lights shine on the road underneath the one you’re behind.

Regarding the third brake light that flashes rapidly, I watched a few vehicles that have them. Most of them were cars, some were trucks and I think one was a semi. I thought maybe it was speed activated but it seemed to be random whether one’s cars brakes flashed or stayed on. Beyond being annoying in stop & go traffic like RoadRunner said, I quickly determined that they become useless at warning people behind you. You will often need to slow down slightly in this kind of traffic, so if your brake light flashes every time you touch the pedal, people start tuning it out.

And for lane changes, your turn signals are there so you can tell people ahead of time you’ll be switching lanes. Making the lane change first and then putting your signal on a second or two after you’ve completed the move is moronic.

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People here do it just as well, and it have rubbed off on me, need to get rid of that bad habit.

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Stay out of LA then. This is a common practice there because if you put your blinker on beforehand the person in the lane you’re trying to go into will most likely speed up so you can’t get in front of them.

I get the “if I give them advance notice, they’ll be a jerk and not let me”. I’ve seen the ones that start the lane change and then turn on the blinkers. But this was, the car made it all the way into the lane and I saw the turn signal come on two seconds after that. Stupidly pointless.