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[barenakedjanie]

I was thinking about something as I was doing my daily commute on the thruway. When I was young, I learned the art of alerting oncoming traffic to police laying in wait by flashing your brights. I was taught that it was a courtesy, hopefully returned somewhere up the road, preventing you from getting a speeding ticket. Drivers united against The

Comments

[dawezl]

I try to do it, but it's definitely illegal, so I don't always have a safe opportunity to warn people. For example, the cops stage a speed trap right at my parent's street. They hide all the cop cars on my parent's street, and hide behind a fence, then pop out on foot and shoot radar at all the cars. You can't really warn anyone, b/c they have another cop stationed about 1/4 mile down the road to catch anyone who doesn't pull over, and that guy can see you coming and going for a long distance.

[jewelsverne]

I don't care if it's illegal or not. I've done it before, I'll do it again, and I appreciate when other people return the gesture.

Stick it to The Man!

[barenakedjanie]

First the tomatoes and now this! We are kindred souls.

[smrou]

I don't care if it's illegal either. Around here I really never see speed traps with more than one police car anyway, so it's not like I'd be caught.

But I don't tend to do it anyway, just because I don't think about it.

[smrou]

I also learned this convention and I still see it done, though I don't tend to do it myself. Flashing brights to me means a)your brights are on and they shouldn't be, b)your headlights aren't on and they should be, or c)there's a cop up ahead. Usually when lights get flashed at me I check that my headlights are on and my brights aren't, and then a second later I'll pass a cop and think, "Oh...that's why they did that."

[dana7880]

I used to do it until I learned you could get a ticket for it. So I don't do it anymore. But I know that when someone flashes their lights off and on, that means a cop is coming up, and if they flash their brights, it means turn on your headlights :)