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Das Volk posted:I used the handbrake on my E30 to stop it from about 95MPH after the front wheel sheared off. The last thing I'd want is to be in that situation again with a foot operated e-brake (keep in mind that the wheel took the brake line, and thus all pressure, with it). It's way too hard to tell if the rears are starting to lock up otherwise and probably likely to induce a spin. Don't E30s have dual circuit brakes?
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Sep 6, 2013 17:30
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InitialDave posted:More of an issue is that the E30 uses a mini-drum inside the centre of the disc for the handbrake, and it's less than wonderful in terms of power. Yeah, my Peugeot has the same thing. It completely locked the right rear wheel while I was crossing an intersection about a month and a half ago and cost me a completely set of discs+drums, pads and shoes. The grizzled old mechanic who fixed it and later fixed a bit of rubbing due to the new parts, told me in no uncertain terms that the whole drum-within-a-disc thing is probably the dumbest thing ever, along with disc rear brakes on commuter cars. If your car has drum rear brakes, you wear them as you drive and brake. This is good, because it keeps the braking surface for the handbrake nice and fresh too, and ensures that you get the brake shoes changed at least once in a while. With disc rear brakes and a drum handbrake, you basically never put any wear on the handbrake, causing corrosion to build up and everything tends to freeze together on humid days. And with the soft braking style most people have, you never really wear the rear disc brakes much either. So his advice was to use the brakes more and to engage the handbrake slightly while driving once every couple of weeks, to wear the brakes shoes and put a bit of heat through them.
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Sep 6, 2013 18:42
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8ender posted:BMW was way ahead of the curve on this. In 1993 when they built my car mandatory DRLs had just been phased into Canadian law. Their solution was to wire all the lights to stay on all the time regardless of switch position. I buy lightbulbs in bulk. I have three settings for my lights: 1) Low beam on, cluster lights off 2) Parking lamps on, cluster lights on 3) Low beam on, cluster lights on If the engine's on, at least some kind of outside illumination is happening. Originally position 1 is supposed to turn everything off, but this is the EU, son! We can't allow that kind of thing! Also, I can't turn on my rear fog light without turning on the front fog lights as well 
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Sep 9, 2013 12:54
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YF19pilot posted:You know how you get that line of people at a 4-way. Then when someone goes, the guy right behind him just decides to say 'gently caress it' and goes through the intersection, courtesy and traffic laws be damned? When you change that "STOP" to a "YIELD", suddenly it isn't just the 2nd guy, but basically everyone behind him goes as well until someone almost has an accident with somebody who is going through the roundabout. Or you get that idiot that doesn't understand you don't stop in the circle, and will stop. at. every. exit. to wave the drivers through, which leads to the first point, so now you're stuck in the middle of a traffic circle, behind someone who was being "nice" while a train of cars fly by because "YIELD means if the guy ahead of you is moving you can just follow him through and never at anytime means STOP." Ugh, 4-way stops are the worst invention ever for basing right-of-way on "who was here first?". You should change it so that everyone would have to give way to traffic coming from the right, like it is in civilized countries (such as here  ). It works so much better (as long as people are actually aware of the rule).
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Sep 9, 2013 14:44
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YF19pilot posted:Basically, two left turn lanes, which immediately lead into a left right 's'. Problem? That first entrance in the bottom corner there goes to Wal-Mart, so half of the dopes around here will sit in the outside lane, and either swing into the inside lane while making the left, or just barge over into the right hand lane in the middle of the 's' so they can make the turn into Wal-Mart. Since my work is at the other end of this plaza, I usually stick to the outside lane, but I've had countless near-misses of people just barging over and not knowing they're suppose to stay in their lane. One of particular note was a lady who I honked at for nearly putting me up the curb, who then proceeded to stay in the left lane all the way to the end of that road, then turn around and go all the way back to get to Starbucks (in the plaza on the corner in that picture). Double left turn lanes are my nemesis, I've lost count of how many times I've been in the right lane, taken the turn nice and wide, stayed perfectly within the lines, and yet nearly been side-swiped by some moron who can't make the turn without drifting from the left lane to the right lane. Sometimes, I think people are just too lazy to turn their steering wheels more than 90 degrees in either direction. Every single day, I see people completely unable to complete their turns into the correct lane, people who don't understand multiple turn lanes, people who drift into the lane farthest to the left when doing a right turn and then continue straight on in the left lane for kilometer after kilometer only to finally change to the right lane right before their next right turn comes up. Even worse, this morning on the motorway coming up to a merge where two 2-lane motorways merge into 3 lanes. The left lane was packed (typical) and I was in the right lane with one car in front of me. Other than that, the right lane was completely empty. Then the apocalyptically idiotic moron in front of me decides to change into the left lane, right before the merge! I mean seriously WTF? That is the ONE THING this person could do to annoy as many people coming from the other direction as possible, and he did it gleefully. I stayed in the right lane and just drove normally, completely avoiding any sort of merging trouble, I didn't even have to let off on the throttle or anything, while everyone in the left lane had to brake and slow down to merge with the packed right lane from the other direction. I really do wonder what goes on in people's minds when they do something like that.
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Sep 10, 2013 10:08
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On my commute this morning, I encountered:
And of course the usual assortment of dickheads either tailgating or trying to race from the lights in rush hour traffic. Fun fun fun.
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Sep 11, 2013 16:40
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CommieGIR posted:I really wish the police would start enforcing traffic laws on bikers just as much as they do cars. They do that from time to time here, station a couple of cops at busy intersections and grab everyone who blows through a red light, rides on the sidewalk, uses a mobile phone etc. At times, they've caught hundreds of cyclists at some intersections over the course of a day, but people just don't give a poo poo. The worst you can get is a ~$175 ticket for the worst infractions. Obviously you don't need any sort of license or anything to ride a bicycle, so a lot of people just ride by their own definition of the traffic laws, based on how they think the world should work, usually in some way that hugely favors themselves. There is a genuine need for some self-discipline, but the Danish Cyclists Federation seems more interested in blocking off roads to cars etc. in order to benefit cyclists, instead of pushing for cyclists to actually obey the traffic laws.
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Sep 11, 2013 16:55
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amenenema posted:Let's not do this. I agree, of course. I'm not trying to imply that cyclists are worse than motorists. The cops grab loads of people who speed in construction zones and drive recklessly etc. as well. It's all really just one huge pile of poo poo, this traffic thing.
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Sep 11, 2013 17:09
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thebigcow posted:Still irritating when they're right behind you and somehow filling up all three mirrors. Your side mirrors aren't adjusted far enough out. Sit in the drivers seat, rest your head against the side window, adjust the driver side mirror so you can just barely see the side of your car. Then put your head right in the middle of the car and adjust the passenger side mirror so you can just barely see the side of the car. You should now have a continuous rear view through the side mirrors and rear view mirror with very little overlap, and significantly reduced blind spots.
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Sep 19, 2013 20:26
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Smoke posted:As far as I know in most European countries rear foglights are permitted when visibility is below 50 meters. Fronts can go on for visibility under 200 meters. Inappropriate use will usually result in a ticket if spotted by the police. Doesn't stop people from running their front fogs all the time along with their low beams, either. I think they do it because "it looks cool" or because they think a bunch of near field light improves vision, when in fact it does the opposite. Front fogs OR low beams. Not both. And certainly never front fogs at the same time as high beams, that's even more idiotic.
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Sep 20, 2013 10:42
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Snowdens Secret posted:That being said, if you run daytime running lights, you're endangering motorcyclists. The whole point of bikes running lights in the day is so that car drivers give them the extra attention they need (because they're smaller). When cars run DRLs, it desensitizes drivers, and further tends to make them think oncoming bikes are just cars with a light out. I don't think this is true. DRLs or low beams are mandatory here, and I don't think it desensitizes drivers. Most motorcycle-related accidents here are specifically because drivers mistake them for scooters and think they're slower than they are.
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Sep 22, 2013 21:10
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Red_October_7000 posted:Trucks and bikes move differently to cars, so it's understandable to want your average mouth-breathing motorist to realize what they are and think about it. As completely brainless and idiotic as the average driver is, a truck (and especially a semi) is friggin' huge and very obviously not a car. I don't believe for a second that people would overlook them just because they weren't running lights. Similarly with bikes, visually they're very obviously not cars, but they have the distinct disadvantage of being small, so I can see why they'd be overlooked by the average driver. On the whole, I like DRLs/mandatory lights. They allow me to more easily spot the average gray car, driving on average gray roads in average gray weather. It also means that bad drivers don't forget to switch on their lights in inclement weather, although the modern trend of DRLs with no rear lights has sort of killed that advantage. As a motorcycle rider, this means cars are more visible to me, allowing giving me more time to react and/or place myself better on the road. I don't rely on drivers seeing me, although I'm sure riding a bright orange bike helps too 
KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Sep 23, 2013 |
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Sep 23, 2013 07:50
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bolind posted:A thousand times this. A modern set of rear LED-based DRL can't actually draw enough power to even be measurable on the mileage, can they? Considering that the average incandescent rear lights barely even draw enough power to be measurable on mileage, LEDs would be completely within the margin of error on mileage calculations. The increase in inclement weather safety would completely outweigh it.
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Sep 23, 2013 09:28
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Spiffness posted:Someone said it very eloquently: 'Those aren't motorcyclists, those are assholes on motorcycles, there is a big difference'. Awww geez, really? Eloquently? You're my new #1 favorite poster  Bugdrvr posted:As a motorcyclist who dislikes inattentive drivers as much as anybody (and who deals with MANY, MANY of them during my daily 60 mile commute), my opinion is SUV guy did nothing wrong. Yeah, it ain't easy when you ain't got time to bleed. sorry I would have done the same thing in that situation. Bunch of douchebags crawling all over the lanes, making a mess of traffic laws and trying the "own the road" because they're a large group? They can gently caress right off and ride properly instead of that macho bullshit. And once they start with clearly threatening behavior and trying to break into the vehicle, drat straight any father with his wife and kid in the car is going to do something desperate.
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Oct 1, 2013 07:19
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Geoj posted:I'm curious - do you usually wait for some indication of "OK, merge" from the next car back in the lane you're intending to change into? In my experience there are far too many "this is a race! I'M WINNING GODDAMNIT!!!" and/or "I'm the rightful owner of this highway, GET OUT OF MAH LANES!" drivers on the road to put your blinker on to signal your intention and politely wait from permission. It seems that even when I change lanes in front of someone several carlengths back they still take offense and immediately plant themselves two inches off my rear bumper. I make sure there's room, put on the blinker and start moving over on the second blink. I usually ignore the gap-closing idiots, it's not like they're actually willing to hit you anyway.
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Oct 4, 2013 07:49
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Hazard lights are basically "traffic's stopped up ahead and I'm about to brake pretty hard, watch out" to me, and nothing else apart from actually being broken down on the side of the road, which has only ever happened to me once. But I see a lot of people using it for Copenhagen Parking. Just throw your car wherever and put on the hazards, because you'll only be a minute (more like 15-20 minutes) and you're only blocking one lane during rush hour, so it's OK. When I had to park my car halfway on the road and halfway on the bike lane because my right rear wheel completely locked up, I got a poo poo ton of pissed-off looks from other drivers while I stood on the sidewalk and waited for the flatbed. Goddammit, I wasn't parking like an rear end in a top hat, I was legitimately broken down, I even had the warning triangle out and everything. KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Oct 4, 2013 |
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Oct 4, 2013 15:23
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Anghammarad posted:I've heard some newer cars (Mercedes and Citroen spring to mind) that will put the hazards on automatically, if you slam the brakes on hard enough. Used to see hazards for slowing on trucks a couple of years ago, and now everyone seems to do it I believe newer Mercedes cars will flash their brake lights at like 120hz when you brake really hard. BMW and Audi have been toying with similar things, such as extra-powerful brake light LEDs that only light up under emergency braking or brake lights that become bigger the harder you brake. It's a good idea, but I don't know how the current legislation sees it.
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Oct 6, 2013 09:16
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kastein posted:http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2006-01-30/html/E6-1079.htm is a decent read for people who are interested in this. Yeah, I messed up the mental calculation, I meant 120/minute 
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Oct 6, 2013 15:25
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Das Volk posted:My car has "brake force" lights that illuminate the LEDs full power (which are incredibly bright) and I'm guessing it's designed to shock people awake. It's possible to have them on all the time but I don't see a reason to blind people, and I think the transition is one of the things that helps grab attention. I didn't know BMW had actually put that on production cars already, neat  It's probably the most elegant solution, no weird flashing or anything, just brake lights that are suddenly gently caress-off bright. Apart from possibly being a bit too bright according to legislation, they also stay within the "brake lights must have constant illumination while braking" rule.
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Oct 7, 2013 07:32
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tetrapyloctomy posted:Maybe a stupid question, but I've noticed that the LED floods in my basement have a sight delay to turn on compared to the incandescents. Is there any delay issue with brake light LEDs? None that I've ever seen, from looking at cars with normal brake lights and LED CHMSLs, the LEDs light up instantly while the normal brake lights take a fraction of a second to warm up. Also on cars with normal indicators and LED repeaters in the wing mirrors, the difference is obvious. Your LED floods are probably just made to be cheap, perhaps there's a power supply that needs to start up or something, they're not made for instant response.
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Oct 7, 2013 13:57
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That's actually a good use of the rear fog lights, especially if they're symmetrical. It's not like anyone understands how to use them in fog, anyway.
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Oct 7, 2013 13:59
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http://dashcamtalk.com/ has some nice reviews and very in-depth forums for anything dashcam-related, especially Chinese/Korean dashcams available on DealExtreme etc. Everyone there is rather  about their cams, but everything is very informative.
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Oct 11, 2013 05:31
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Opensourcepirate posted:I know that a few of the people in this thread are in MA with me. I ride my bicycle about 3.5 miles from Somerville into Cambridge every day for work. I just ordered a Mobius Action Cam, which is more or less a TicTac box that shoots 1080P video for $80. Dashcamtalk says that camera may possibly or possibly not have overheating problems, but nobody knows. Can you do a review on it when you get it, whether it gets hot during use etc.? I love the small form factor and I've been thinking about buying one for my car.
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Oct 11, 2013 06:06
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So in heavy traffic, no one ever gets to turn left? Just go into the intersection, yield to oncoming traffic and turn left if there's a gap or when the light changes. It's the correct way to do it. A red light doesn't mean 'you done hosed up!', it means 'clear the intersection'.
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Oct 13, 2013 13:12
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ExecuDork posted:When I don't have my GPS running, I tend to drive at the speed limit - but my in-car speedo says I'm speeding. When people try to kiss my back bumper as a result, I just ignore them. In this part of the world, a nice safe passing zone will open up fairly soon. Mine is off by roughly the same amount, so usually I drive somewhere between the speed limit and 10km/h over as indicated by my speedo. I figure I'm never speeding more than about 3km/h by doing this so I should be in the clear. I have a pet hate that is speed-related, too. Traffic police around here use a lot of vans outfitted with speed cameras and park them by the side of roads where people tend to speed. These vans are somewhat easy to recognize to the trained motorist, as they are all on white license plates (passenger cars) instead of the usual yellow license plates that most commercial vehicles have. They also have a very distinctive tint job on the rear window with cutouts for the cameras. People usually spot these camera vans and adjust their speed to match the speed limit. That's great, but some people absolutely slam on their brakes, even though they'd been driving at like 10 under the limit. Goddammit people, just go the speed limit, it's not that hard.
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Oct 21, 2013 07:37
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Raluek posted:I am assuming those "YOUR SPEED: __ MPH" radar signs they set up along the road periodically are somewhat accurate, as they tell me my speedo is about 10% high. So I'd expect joe sixpack to know about how far off his is based on these, even if he doesn't have a phone or a standalone GPS that can tell him. You're assuming that "most people" even give it a second thought.
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Oct 21, 2013 09:00
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Goddammit I hate other drivers. Coming to work today, two lanes of traffic, I needed to go left up ahead. So I placed myself next to a gap, matched speed, waited a couple of seconds, put on my blinker and started to move over after a couple of cycles. Like clockwork as soon as I started moving over, the gargantuan douchebag in the E46 "M3" behind me in the other lane tried to move up and block me off. It didn't work, so he got on his high beams, flicking them at me for a full 10 seconds to signal his displeasure with the great inconvenience that I had subjected him to. gently caress him, there was plenty of space before he decided to act like an entitled jerkoff.
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Oct 22, 2013 10:58
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Das Volk posted:I measured that the M3's speedometer in the UK read high by 3%, so judging by this thread I'm a little surprised. 10% is quite a bit, do you guys think that mfrs do that to game CAFE regulations? I think the ones that read 10% over a outliers. Both of my bikes read maybe 2-3% over at most and the car reads about 5% over.
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Oct 22, 2013 17:33
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some texas redneck posted:My dashcam showed up today. Which one did you get, the Moebius?
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Oct 23, 2013 07:51
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Saw a dude at the lights today floor it and lay on the horn because a woman and her little girl were still crossing by the time the light changed 
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Oct 23, 2013 17:12
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CharlesM posted:Don't you live in a Scandinavian country? Aren't you guys supposed to be better than us?? We love to act all superior to ya'll, but we have our fair share of douchebags.
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Oct 24, 2013 09:02
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MrYenko posted:Are there any dash cams that work like an airplane CVR, and record on a loop, or do I have to fiddle with the damned thing to delete data periodically? Most dash cams can do this. If you find one that can't, don't even bother.
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Oct 25, 2013 20:25
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atomicthumbs posted:Dear ALL YOU FUCKERS, This. So very much this. It's not even that hard. Don't enter the intersection if you will not be able to leave it again before the light turns red. Of course there's some leeway since you can't predict the future, but if it's backed up with stationary traffic, stay the gently caress back, even if the light is green. It's the same thing with cross traffic. Green doesn't mean you should practice your best drag race launch while blaring the horn to get people out of the way, it means "proceed when the intersection is clear". Intersection not clear? Don't loving enter it, no matter which color the light is. I've had people honk, flash their lights and flip me off because I remained stopped at a green light because the road was packed up on the other side all the way back into the intersection. KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 11:17 on Oct 31, 2013 |
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Oct 31, 2013 11:10
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Frank Dillinger posted:At least in Germany, flashing your brights on the autobahn is illegal. Don't want to rush someone into changing lanes when traffic is doing an average of 150 km/h best to a lane of semis doing 95 with salesmen bearing down at 220 in the fast lane. Doesn't stop the 200+ km/h VERY IMPORTANT BUSINESSMEN from flashing their brights like there's no tomorrow at anyone they deem to be impeding their VERY IMPORTANT DRIVING.
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Nov 5, 2013 21:13
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SierraEchoBravo posted:The local favorite is the "Tank Commander." I'm sure its commonplace in other spots that get a lot of snow. Around here it's either that or "Burqa Driver".
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Nov 12, 2013 17:55
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These are the people you share a forum with.
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Nov 18, 2013 02:43
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West SAAB Story posted:What part of a pig looks like that? Think smaller, and with more legs.
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Nov 20, 2013 13:10
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Savington posted:I'm pretty convinced that 99.9% of people who complain about being tailgated are the same idiots going the speed limit in the left lane. The only time it's acceptable to complain about someone following too close is if you're already in the far right lane, AND going at least the speed limit. Nope. Proper following distance is always the responsibility of the driver doing the following. You have the responsibility to maintain proper following distance in front of you because that is the direction your car is moving and where most of your attention is (or should be) focused.
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Nov 30, 2013 15:59
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Terrible Robot posted:It would warm the cockles of my blackened heart if a tailgater worked themselves into an aneurysm behind me one day. I really don't understand how somebody can get so angry about going the speed limit (usually faster). I feel the exact same way about tailgaters and aneurysms. I do the speed limit (never more than 10kph over on my speedo) and I obey the laws of traffic, I drive courteously, I stop at marked pedestrian crossing, I don't enter intersections if I know I'll be trapped in it, I keep right except to pass and so on. If they don't like that, they can go suck a bag of dicks. I hope their blood pressure spikes so high that a vein bursts and kills them.
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Nov 30, 2013 22:19
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Horse Divorce posted:I don't know, man. I heard some pretty bad stories about a dude who used a teleporter with a house fly. I don't even want to imagine what would happen if you used a teleporter with a pony. I think I've seen something like that on DeviantArt, "tripod" covers it pretty well.
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Dec 4, 2013 15:25
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