Jon's musings about traffic... March 30, 2003
Some people are in a hurry... I'm not one of them.

Having grown up in a small town, I never have quite understood the psychology concerning why people do the things that they do in traffic. Let's give you a background on where I stand concerning driving:

• I usually go the speed limit or no more than 3-4 over.
• I obey the school speed limits.
• I annoy my wife when I notice she's going more than 5 over.
• My wife thinks I'm going slow if I'm not going at least 5 over.

Now, here are some of my pet peeves:

• I can't stand people that go 35 in a 55.
• I can't stand people that hurry up, pass you, and then get right in front of you
• People who 'force merge' themselves from a lane that ends into the other lane
• People who can't figure out how to turn their signal on at a 4-way stop when they are turning.
• People who know a lane will end in 1 mile due to construction and don't merge when they first see the sign. The sign is usually 1-2 miles BEFORE the construction, yet people try to go to the very front of the lane RIGHT before it ends and THEN merge.
• People who don't understand the "person on the right goes first" rule at a four way stop.
• People who, when you try to speed up to pass them (because they are going slow), hurry up and accellerate, and then slow down again when you get behind them again.
• People who tailgate right on my bumper. That's just plain rude.

When people do the above, they really annoy me - it seems to go against everything they teach you in driver's education - to be nice to other drivers, yield the right of way, obey traffic laws. Whatever happened to the rule about how far back you are supposed to keep from the person in the front of you?

Partial Solution?

Back in 1999, as I was surfing the Internet, I found this nice little device called a Highway Zapper or Traffic Zapper. It claimed to be able to set off X-Band radar detectors from 1/8 mile or less. So I plunked down $50 and got a prebuilt (turns out it was the last one available) one.


The Highway Zapper - external and internal pictures
This device has been so much fun on long roadtrips. I've seen people shoot by at 80+ MPH - when I hit this thing, I see their brake lights come on, and they usually end up falling back in the left lane. Not all people have radar detectors, but for the ones that react to the Zapper, it makes it all worthwhile.

Note:I do not have the schematics for this thing, I don't think you can get them anymore, and I'm not selling it. A nice webpage to look at for more information on it is here.

Other Stuff
It just amazes me what people do on the road - I guess until we have either a camera or a police officer at every corner, people are going to pull this stuff. All you can do is try and be safe and stay out of the way of impatient reckless drivers.

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