In the early 1980's (in the U.S.) somebody sponsored fleet tests of these lights.
(I think it was an insurance company working with taxicab fleets, but don't quote me...)
The huge reduction in rear-end collisions seen in these studies was what led to the "3rd eye" requirement for passenger cars.
Joe
I wonder if an extremely powerful electromagnet mounted to the front bumper would be enough to clear those from the roadway, even at high speed?
-Matt
yeah, but...
the nhtsa may *think* they were mandatory on the '86 model year, but my '86 honda accord (a lovely car, by the way) definitely DID NOT come with a third brake light (i added one myself).
otherwise, i would agree with their conclusions - it's a cheap and effective safety measure.
now, if i could only aim the heat-seekers low enough to take out that suv in front of me, i'd be able to *see* the damned brake lights again!
I bought a 1985 1/2 Honda Prelude 2.0 Si (the first fuel-injected Honda) in August of 1976. It did not have the third light. The 1986 model did. You're only off by a couple of months.
Are you *sure* it was an '86? I am equally sure that the '86 Prelude 2.0 Si had the third light, because my '85 1/2 was one of the rare ones that did not.
You can certainly do something to avoid being rear ended. If someone is following too close, simply leave enough space in front of you for him too. I suggest twice the distance.
If you have to stop quickly, hit the brakes hard for a second to wake the follower up, then let off and brake more easily.
and what you do with the guy behind the second?... third light is use not only to advice teh second... even the third...
"Moon Guy" escribió en el mensaje news: snipped-for-privacy@news.telus.net...
You mean pull ahead? That might work for a few seconds. Then he might pull up and tailgate me again. Some people are aggressive. Some people just aren't thinking and are unduly comfortable with following closely. I can't control how closely they follow.
I do have tailgating avoidance techniques. If I'm on a highway and someone tailgates me and I'm not in the right lane, I pull into the right lane. Fair enough, because if I can, I should.
If I'm on a highway and in the right lane and someone tailgates, I might speed up and slow down alternately a few times. This can wake the guy up and lead him to decide to pull out and around me.
I sometimes even stick my arm out and wave back and forth with my palm facing backwards, to say "back off". I had to do this yesterday to an
18-wheeler! He pulled around me.On local roads, if someone tailgates me, I sometimes pull off to let them pass. Better to be safe and calm than to start a fight, right?
But if I can't or won't for some reason, I sometimes drive erratically, to make the guy think I'm nuts and stay away from me. If you do this, be careful.
I wish there were such a thing as a tailgating gun, analogous to a speed radar. I think cops would do a better job if they enforced tailgating rules more and speed laws less.
Tom
No, I think he's talking about leaving extra distance in case traffic ahead stops in a hurry. You basically allow for the stopping distance you need plus the stopping distance HE needs. Then you just don't brake as hard (because you don't need to) allowing him to complete his braking without using your bumper.
Good plan.
I find a couple of flashes of the brake lights generally will work too. If it doesn't, they're doing it intentionally. Don't keep trying, they'll just creep closer.
I'd ALWAYS rather have a tailgater in front of me than behind me. Not a bad plan at all.
Just don't drive aggressively erratically. Slowly drift to the edge of your lane, and then jerk back as if you're dozing off.
I've seen tickets where cops measure the distance between cars with the laser gun and write up following too close tickets. Not nearly often enough, but it can and is done.
An option you didn't mention - if you have enough HP at your disposal is to pass the car ahead of you. Make the tailgater his problem, not yours. I do this on my motorcycle.
Not in my 165 HP Legacy wagon! :-D
Tom
Many, many years ago, I spoofed the tailgater following me. I jammed on my brakes for an instant, just long enough to turn the brake lights on. And, the guy who was tailgating him, ran into him. Ah, sweet revenge.
Al
We have one, by accident -- a tailgating squirtgun.
One of the four windshield sprayer ports on the hood of my wife's Honda for some reason squirts up over the top of the car, producing a spattering of rain on the tailgating vehicle.
Since there are two per side on the front windshield, it's never been a problem.
When I'm being tailgated while driving her car, I, um, always start to worry about visibility as well as stopping distances.
So, I lean on the front windshield washer button for a while -- and simultaneously turn on the REAR windshield wiper and washer.
Between the wig-wag on the rear window, and the spattering on the windshield of of the sleeping driver behind me, it works, consistently, and seems not to annoy the tailgaters because they don't know I'm doing it to wash _them_.
I do all the other maneuvers too -- pull to the right lane, signaling first; tap my brakes; slow down while tapping my brakes; leave the road in a safe spot if necessary.
I learned from a CHP officer that they're always told never to pull off the road at night and stop _behind_ a disabled or stopped vehicle (as opposed to a traffic stop, where they use the red light to pull someone over and want to be behind them lighting them up and with flashers on
--- this is because drunks will often lock onto taillights ahead, and at night, they not uncommonly drive into vehicles that are on the shoulder with just the taillights lit up.
I think that's also true for tailgaters -- they're often somewhat incompetent at staying on the road and are using whatever's in front of them as an easy guide to where the edges of the lanes are.
That I'd like to see...how lidar would work, measuring distance between to objects moving, relative to the lidar unit.
"Following to closely" is generally only written when there's been an accident (ie the follower slammed into the followee), otherwise, it's based on the officer's *opinion*, which is rebuttable ("Why do you say he was following to closely officer? Was there an accident? Did my client strike the other vehicle? Did anything happen at all, officer?").
Rule here is one car length for every 10MPH. The tailgaters I'm talking about are the ones whose pimples you can see in the rear view mirror.
Al
So in other words, you're happy you caused a potentially life-threatening accident that might otherwise not have happened?
What a jerk.
that "rule", although it's probably in every driver handbook, doesn't work too well: first of all, how long is a "car length"? is it 10',
16', or 20'? and second, measuring distance is not something most people can do accurately, while traveling at 100 km/hr. ("five car lengths" doesn't look all that different from "six and a half car lengths" to the average driver.)a MUCH better way to judge following distance is based on reaction TIME: if you allow 2 seconds (minimum) between yourself and the car in front of you, that will allow safe following at ANY speed. (it automatically adjusts for speed.) most people can react in less than two seconds, which is where the safety part comes in...
it is also easier to check, by counting 2 seconds from the time the car in front of you passes a post or road marking, until you reach the same point. and you can do it without taking your eyes off the road.
....... tom klein
it was definitely an '86 accord "s" (hatchback), bought relatively late in the model year - may, 1986, but it might also be because it was a canadian model, and there may have been differences in the regulations that year.
....... tom kle> >
Just wanted to jump in to say (on behalf of my 17-year-old son) that I've been tailgated by plenty of middle-aged men and women in my 35 years of driving, not just teenagers. I've found that using the emergency flashers works best to get the idiot off my tail.
You know how you can smell the sulphur from a lit match in the car ahead of you? I wish someone would invent a dispenser that could release some eau de skunk out a special vent beside the license plate. Flashers combined with some terrible odor would have a gradual pavlovian effect, don't you think? Timo
....and here's something that no amount of space in front of you will help -- at least as far as someone coming up behind you. I was on the PA turnpike yesterday and had just rounded a curve when some ASS in front of me apparently needing to pull off on the right shoulder, proceeded to brake....going down to about 30 mph before he pulled off. Since I keep a huge distance between myself and the car in front, I had no trouble slowing down, but behind me, coming 'round the bend, were some huge SUV pigmobiles. I really thought I was going to get rammed. I didn't. I was lucky that the drivers behind me were driving alert -- not on their cell phones, digging into the candy corn, reading a map or yelling at their kids--LOL. The guy pulling off on the right was actually braking down his speed -- not like his car had died or anything. These are the jerks that kill people. The road is made so that you can pull off at 45 MPH, and if you don't do that, you are really endangering yourself and others.
June
"Tom Reingold" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net...
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