Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition
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@blek said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
Regarding always-on brake lights, that's obviously terrible, but I'd say always on is still better than the opposite, which I occasionally see as well.
Recently I was driving and it was dark. I see a car in front of me with the tail lights off. As it starts slowing down at a red light I see that it's not just the tail lights, the brake lights don't work either.
I pull up next to the car, note that the headlights don't work either and that the women driving has a child in the car. I inform her that none of her lights work. Her response was something along the line of "oh thanks, I was wondering why it was so dark."
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@masonwheeler said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@topspin It's not so bad around here, but when I was in PA, I saw soooooo many people driving big, huge pickup trucks (you know, Silverados, F-150s, etc) with nothing at all loaded in the bed. Most of them were super aggressive drivers too, acting like they owned the road. I always wondered just what it was they were compensating for...
Really? I've seen more pickups in Utah (and pretty much all of the western states that I've been in) than in Pennsylvania. Maybe it's because I'm somewhat close to Philly.
And an F150 is big??? That's just about the smallest Ford pickup that they make!
I won't dispute the aggressiveness of PA drivers, though. They're just crazy.
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@djls45 said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
Really? I've seen more pickups in Utah (and pretty much all of the western states that I've been in) than in Pennsylvania. Maybe it's because I'm somewhat close to Philly.
Yeah, so was I.
And an F150 is big??? That's just about the smallest Ford pickup that they make!
Is it? Then what's the really big pickups they do? Maybe I got the model wrong.
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@masonwheeler F-250, F-350, F-450, ... I'm not sure off-hand how high they go, and I don't care enough to do any research.
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@masonwheeler The F250 and F350 are both bigger at a half- and three-quarter ton. I think there's also an F450, but that's not as common.
Dodge Rams have the same numbering times 10. The 1500 is a quarter-ton (small), the 2500 is a half-ton (medium), the 3500 is a three-quarter ton (big), the 4500 is a one-ton (really big), and the 5500 is a five-quarter ton (huge).
Silverado is Chevrolet's full-size pickup model.
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@atazhaia said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
turning the van 90 degrees
Around a vertical axis, I hope.
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@hardwaregeek said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
F-250, F-350, F-450, ... I'm not sure off-hand how high they go
F-15
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@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
Failures like these should prevent the car from moving
faster than 30 kphin my opinion.FTFY. If others can't see if you are braking, you're simply not safe and should get the vehicle towed to somewhere that can fix that critical safety system.
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@blek said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
there are circumstances where it's perfectly justified to drive drunk
How many of us end up at a shootout at a party at a remote farmhouse anyway?
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@blek said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
Everyone others' brake lights help you drive safer, and your own brake lights help everyone else drive safer... the entirety of my point is that modifying your brake lights - or any other indicator on your car - is dangerous and nobody should ever do that.
You see combined brake/turn-indicator lights quite a bit on cars in the US, but it's very rare on cars in Europe. I guess there's a difference in regulations.
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@dkf It doesn't have to be a shootout, all it takes is a drunk idiot breaking a glass and then stepping into the mess barefooted. I've seen it happen once, a few years ago, a girl sliced her toe open like that... there was so much blood it was unbelievable, the place looked like a murder scene.
It actually was a remote farmhouse, though. I find myself in places like that fairly often.
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@blek It would seem sensible for one person who can drive to stay sober in such circumstances…
But that's probably not going to happen.
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@blek said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden Regarding defaulting to a safe state - I'm not a big fan of hardware restrictions based on sensors. I know some people would like to do things like install a breathalyzer in every car, but there are circumstances where it's perfectly justified to drive drunk and a device like that could cost someone their life. These safety measures aren't aware of context, they can't tell whether the driver is about to go for a drunken joyride or if they're saving someone's life.
It's something the industry will have to do anyway if they want to have self-driving cars. And at least in Europe, the circumstances are very rare that you'll actually save someone's life this way without seriously endangering yourself and your passenger.
At least in Germany we have a very tight-knit web of ambulance stations. Which means that in many circumstances help will arrive faster than you'll be able to drive to the next hospital.
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@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
It's something the industry will have to do anyway if they want to have self-driving cars.
If the car is self-driving, why would it need a breathalyzer?
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@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
in Germany we have a very tight-knit web of ambulance stations
Some parts of the U.S. are quite rural. Other parts aren't, but still have very high emergency response times for one reason or another.
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@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
It's something the industry will have to do anyway if they want to have self-driving cars.
If the car is self-driving, why would it need a breathalyzer?
I wasn't talking about the breathalyzer. You may want to ask @blek for that.
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@blek said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
These safety measures aren't aware of context
To strengthen that point: Even the use of evidentiary-quality breathalyzers requires waiting 10-15 minutes after consuming any liquid, to avoid false positives from e.g. mouthwash. Some jurisdictions have "zero-tolerance" laws, and sometimes for only some people (such as minors); will all cars be forced to conform to that 0.01-0.02 maximum for all people? Also, will those with auto-brewery syndrome ever be allowed to drive again?
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@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
in Germany we have a very tight-knit web of ambulance stations
Some parts of the U.S. are quite rural. Other parts aren't, but still have very high emergency response times for one reason or another.
Well, that's kind of a given considering the general state of your medical services, truth to be told. Still doesn't make "let everyone get drunk" a good idea.
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@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
It's something the industry will have to do anyway if they want to have self-driving cars.
If the car is self-driving, why would it need a breathalyzer?
I wasn't talking about the breathalyzer. You may want to ask @blek for that.
Ah. I guess I got confused by what you mean by "it" then. Since it isn't breathalyzers, what is it?
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@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
It's something the industry will have to do anyway if they want to have self-driving cars.
If the car is self-driving, why would it need a breathalyzer?
I wasn't talking about the breathalyzer. You may want to ask @blek for that.
Ah. I guess I got confused by what you mean by "it" then. Since it isn't breathalyzers, what is it?
What I talked about in my previous posts? Faulty breaking lights? It's @blek who jumped from there to breathalyzers.
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@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
in Germany we have a very tight-knit web of ambulance stations
Some parts of the U.S. are quite rural. Other parts aren't, but still have very high emergency response times for one reason or another.
Well, that's kind of a given considering the general state of your medical services, truth to be told.
I live in the U.S., and I'm uncertain how "the general state of [our] medical services" could be a factor. Could you explain?
Still doesn't make "let everyone get drunk" a good idea.
Who said it was?
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@lolwhat Not interested in your sniping from the sidelines. Go bother someone else.
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@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
It's something the industry will have to do anyway if they want to have self-driving cars.
If the car is self-driving, why would it need a breathalyzer?
I wasn't talking about the breathalyzer. You may want to ask @blek for that.
Ah. I guess I got confused by what you mean by "it" then. Since it isn't breathalyzers, what is it?
What I talked about in my previous posts? Faulty breaking lights?
The mind-reading part of my brain is broken, what can I say.
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@rhywden A legitimate question is "sniping from the sidelines" and it bothers you?
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@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
I live in the U.S., and I'm uncertain how "the general state of [our] medical services" could be a factor. Could you explain?
Yes, in what possible way could the quality of medical service be correlated to the quality of ambulance services?
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@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
It's something the industry will have to do anyway if they want to have self-driving cars.
If the car is self-driving, why would it need a breathalyzer?
I wasn't talking about the breathalyzer. You may want to ask @blek for that.
Ah. I guess I got confused by what you mean by "it" then. Since it isn't breathalyzers, what is it?
What I talked about in my previous posts? Faulty breaking lights?
The mind-reading part of my brain is broken, what can I say.
There's this feature of NodeBB where you can see exactly what someone replied to. Maybe try to get some context before you jump into a discussion and accuse someone of something he didn't even say.
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@jaloopa said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
I live in the U.S., and I'm uncertain how "the general state of [our] medical services" could be a factor. Could you explain?
Yes, in what possible way could the quality of medical service be correlated to the quality of ambulance services?
I have no interest in further continuing this irrelevant tangent. Go create a new thread if you want to discuss this.
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@jaloopa No. What part of the "general state of the medical system" would cause high response times?
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@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
It's something the industry will have to do anyway if they want to have self-driving cars.
If the car is self-driving, why would it need a breathalyzer?
I wasn't talking about the breathalyzer. You may want to ask @blek for that.
Ah. I guess I got confused by what you mean by "it" then. Since it isn't breathalyzers, what is it?
What I talked about in my previous posts? Faulty breaking lights?
The mind-reading part of my brain is broken, what can I say.
There's this feature of NodeBB where you can see exactly what someone replied to. Maybe try to get some context before you jump into a discussion and accuse someone of something he didn't even say.
You had specifically quoted only part of @blek's post. I was basing context on that. I'd apologize for missing that part of the context, but it seems as though you aren't interested. Try to have a better Friday.
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@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
If the car is self-driving, why would it need a breathalyzer?
Reminds me of Schlock Mercenary, where a bit of flavor text explains why Manual Operation Under the Influence is a crime that carries the death penalty:
While it may seem harsh that the 31st-century equivalent of "Driving Under the Influence" carries with it the death penalty, this is due to an inherent inequivalency between MOUI and DUI.
With DUI, you need only climb into your vehicle while under the influence of alchohol or drugs and attempt to drive it home.
With MOUI you must disable a number of safety systems designed to prevent idiots like you from manually operating their vehicles while inebriated, overtired, wasted, decaffeinated, angry, emotionally distraught, or suffering from hormonal disorders like PMS or testosterone poisoning (the latter having been positively identified as a leading cause of stupidity among males between the ages of puberty and death). After disabling the safety systems (which task almost certainly requires ice-cold sobriety), you must decide to switch the vehicle to a manual mode of operation. In some cases, this requires installing a manual mode of operation.
After this demonstration of superior technical skills and poor judgement, you must then deliberately impair your defective judgement further by quaffing, inhaling, injecting, or otherwise consuming something mildly toxic (or, in some precedent-setting cases, breaking up with your girlfriend.)
At this point you might argue that you are no longer responsible for your actions, which actions include climbing into your vehicle and attempting to pilot it home. Technically, this is true. The prosecution will counter by arguing that it isn't Manual Operation Under the Influence that you are going to be humanely (if rather publicly) executed for. It's the fact that you deliberately made such an irresponsible act POSSIBLE by putzing around with your ride. You know those signs that say "don't putz around with this system -- serious injury or death could result?" Well, they were talking about YOUR death, and it is now resulting.
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@zecc said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@hardwaregeek said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
F-250, F-350, F-450, ... I'm not sure off-hand how high they go
F-15
OV-105
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@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
Some jurisdictions have "zero-tolerance" laws, and sometimes for only some people (such as minors); will all cars be forced to conform to that 0.01-0.02 maximum for all people?
Since, as everyone knows, a photo of one's genitals is the best way to determine whether one is a minor or not, drivers will be required to first exhibit their genitals for the machine to analyze in order to determine which maximum should apply to them. ()
@lolwhat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
Also, will those with auto-brewery syndrome ever be allowed to drive again?
They're already driving drunk, both legally and by any objective standpoint.
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@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
a car where the brake lights were faulty - they were permanently on.
This is usually due to driving an automatic with 2 feet. Even though it's been 11 years since I owned a manual, I still can't do that.
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@masonwheeler said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
I dealt with it by keeping a buffer of several seconds between myself and the car ahead of me
Wish I could do that. If you do that in traffic here, several cars will divebomb into the gap. Usually at the same time.
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@deadfast said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
I inform her that none of her lights work. Her response was something along the line of "oh thanks, I was wondering why it was so dark."
I love my automatic headlights. Turns on/off based on ambient light. It does mean they'll sometimes turn on when I'm stopped under an overpass - I can deal with that!
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@dcon said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@deadfast said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
I inform her that none of her lights work. Her response was something along the line of "oh thanks, I was wondering why it was so dark."
I love my automatic headlights. Turns on/off based on ambient light. It does mean they'll sometimes turn on when I'm stopped under an overpass - I can deal with that!
Well, considering that the brake lights didn't work either I'm thinking this was something more than just forgetting to operate a switch.
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@dcon said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
a car where the brake lights were faulty - they were permanently on.
This is usually due to driving an automatic with 2 feet. Even though it's been 11 years since I owned a manual, I still can't do that.
It doesn't matter how long you've had an automatic for, you should never ever ever drive with both feet. There's a reason the dead pedal exists even in automatics.
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@deadfast said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@dcon said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@rhywden said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
a car where the brake lights were faulty - they were permanently on.
This is usually due to driving an automatic with 2 feet. Even though it's been 11 years since I owned a manual, I still can't do that.
It doesn't matter how long you've had an automatic for, you should never ever ever drive with both feet. There's a reason the dead pedal exists even in automatics.
Yeah, it makes no sense to use the brake and accelerator at the same time.
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So yesterday I hit another car for the first time. Blektown got a little bit of snowfall and it basically caused a traffic apocalypse because of course the road maintenance people were completely unprepared for snow IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING JANUARY. Anyway, I've never had anything like this happen, and I wanted to ask some possibly more experienced drivers if there was anything I could do.
The situation: I was on a road with an 80 kph speed limit and I was doing about 45, because anything more felt really unstable. I was driving a tiny FWD hatchback with good mud&snow tires on. I was driving down a fairly steep hill and there was an intersection with traffic lights at the bottom, with a few cars waiting on the red light. I was familiar with the place and visibility wasn't too bad despite the snowfall so I saw the red light from maybe 500m away. I let off the gas and engine braked for a bit, then I shifted down to the 1st and continued engine braking as I was getting close to the cars in front. The problem happened when I was maybe 10m from the other car, I was already down to under 10 kph but I had to hit the clutch because otherwise my engine would stall, so I did that and started braking as softly as I could, and at that point I found I was basically driving a one-ton sled with all wheels locked - I was sliding downwards due to the slope I was on. I hope that makes sense.
Luckily all that happened was that my car sort of leaned on the other car with no visible damage to either. I know I should have expected this and that I should have aimed to stop a long distance from everyone else, but is there anything else I could have done in the last 10, maybe 15 meters - other than just about shit my pants?
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@blek if it's icy, there's not a lot you can do to stop yourself downhill. If there was some untouched snow you could have tried going through that as it has more traction than the stuff that's been packed down by multiple tyres
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@jaloopa Yeah, good point. There wasn't any room to do that, but I wonder if I would have thought of it if there was.
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@blek said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
Luckily all that happened was that my car sort of leaned on the other car with no visible damage to either.
I count that as Success.
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@blek said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
I found I was basically driving a one-ton sled with all wheels locked - I was sliding downwards due to the slope I was on.
At that point, I don't think there is anything more you could have done, apart from not being there at all, or having a different car/setup with more grips (don't you have ABS? it might have helped a bit, although probably not significantly at that point...). Aiming for a stop 10 m before might have helped, or it might not, once you're sliding the car might have slid (slod? slidden?) all the way down whatever you'd done.
Btw, I'm only half-joking about the "not being there" part. Given the conditions you describe (and your car), the simply fact that you decided to go on that slope was probably what made the accident almost inevitable. Of course, you probably had tons of good reasons to be there (such as this being the only road to your work or whatever!), I'm not criticizing you for that. But what I mean is that safe driving also includes knowing when not to drive (or not on that road), not only how to drive.
In the end, you managed to actually stop with only a minor bump, that should count as at least a half-success given what you describe! (full success would have been to avoid it entirely, which probably meant avoiding that road entirely) (also, don't fret about a minor low-speed contact like this, despite how some owners behave, a car is a pretty sturdy thing and slightly tarnishing the paint on the bumpers won't make any difference to it...)
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@remi I do have ABS, it didn't do much except give me a nice foot massage... about not being there, yeah, I could have taken a different route, I was driving to work but the slope is avoidable.
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@blek said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@remi I do have ABS, it didn't do much except give me a nice foot massage...
Ah, ok. That's about what I expected would happen, but since you did not mention it, I wondered if you had a car old enough not to have it (in which case, overall and if possible, a good safe driving tip would have been to change your car! ABS really is a life-saver device...).
about not being there, yeah, I could have taken a different route, I was driving to work but the slope is avoidable.
I'm not blaming you, I would probably have done the same as you did (thinking something like "I'll be careful, the slope is not that bad, there isn't that much snow, it'll be ok..."). But really, a lot of safe driving habits are about anticipating (keeping enough space so that you have time to react etc.), more than about having cat-like reaction times (or doing the perfect thing in the heat and stress of the moment), and picking your route is part of anticipating the problems.
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@blek Well, I'll second that there's not much you can do in that situation as basically neither steering nor braking are an option anymore.
Other than being a clairvoyant, of course.
Had a similar incident some years past - also had to drive down a slope inside a city and, since there was a stop sign at the end of said slope, already approached it only at walking speed.
When I tried to come to a complete halt I felt the ABS engaging instantly. Only thing left to do: Lean on the horn and hope that there was no one coming with "right of way". I finally came to a stop halfway across the crossing.
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I'm not sure how I feel about this.
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@rhywden In private / gated communities for sure (but those are actually private property). Not generally on regular roads.
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@remi said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
ABS really is a life-saver device
This is true. It once saved the life of a pedestrian who stepped out in front of me without looking.