Do you warn other drivers?

I'm always confused when I see a vehicle driving in the dark without some form of headlights on. Don't most vehicles post-2000 have DRLs and those auto-on sensors (the nipple on the dash)?

 

My car doesn't have the auto on/off (2006 Escape), but if my lights aren't on, my dash doesn't light up. So if it's dark and I can't read how fast I'm going, that's kind of a big hint...

 

Good point, and one I missed in the OP. To clarify, everyone I've known/seen that does the headlight flash turns them off and then on, not high beams to regular beams.
--- merged: Dec 2, 2013 at 11:13 AM ---

I think my truck is a 2001, and it doesn't have auto-lights. I've gotten to the point that I just turn them on every time I get in the car, though, so I don't really have to worry about it.

 

My 2009 Tacoma does not, maybe it's a truck thing?

Flashing lights on and off for a speed trap is common in Colorado. I don't, but I do appreciate it. I really need to mount a radar detector on my bike. I seem to have a thing for getting popped accelerating out of town.

 

Headlights are always on - the cars come with built in daytime driving lights - I guess that's not too common in the US, as I used to get folks pointing at my car and trying to tell me my lights were on (in the daytime).

I can see omega's point about it being more than a speeding concern - there's the impairment aspect. Often, no amount of warning will impact those guys anyway. But if the intent of a radar trap is to slow down traffic (that's what it is isn't it?) rather than to collect fines (!! I hope it isn't that) then the effect of flashing the lights at approaching traffic should achieve the same as seeing the cruiser parked at the side of the road. Except that it would happen sooner and therefore last longer as the drivers slow down in anticipation of the radar trap, before it comes in sight. Sounds like a win win situation.

 

So just 2.5 hours ago I'm on the interstate, radar on. Vehicle approaching other direction, locked at 94/75. Just so happens to be a turnaround there. Stop him on an exit ramp. Immediately see his bloodshot, watery eyes, and smell the odor of an unknown alcoholic beverage on his breath. Ask him to move off the exit ramp to a safe parking lot. Does not perform roadsides as a sober person would. Blows a .146 on a pbt. Arrest, take him to the local pd for a certified breath test. .141. Now I'm on my lunch break. I'll have to start the several hours of paperwork that has now been generated. But it was all generated by a speeding violation. If he had gone a few more miles he woould have been diving into a gnarly canyon where the speed on the interstate drops to 60. At that point I might have been dealing with his fatal crash. And my night would have been a lot longer.

 

I see now you mean speed/limit, but on first reading this, I thought, the Ford and the Chrysler???

Obviously not anywhere in Michigan.

 

I don't flash to warn about police, but I have done so when the road is flooded from the direction I was driving from, or some other danger. You can get ticketed for flashing ( but I've only seen someone ticketed when it was near a check-point).

 

what is the charge that creates the ticket?

 

Just following up. How do you know how if the speeds are set by engineering best practices? How does speed enforcement create more danger? Are you aware that the person you are warning could be impaired oe have a warrant or be actively commiting a crime?

 

That's certainly something to think about.

 

speaking as a criminal who doesn't break the law,

i always warn people. maybe that guy had a tough day and is going a few miles per hour over.

i'd rather give him the chance to reflect and adjust his speed.

the cops (who i love, by the way) have enough revenue without that extra fine.

\pig

 

Sounds like a job for LEOs, not John Q. Public. All these What-Ifs are a ridiculous example of minority situations.

It's blatantly obvious that speeding tickets on major freeways are a shameful-but-necessary revenue stream.

Speeding in a school zone? I get it. Blasting through downtown? I get it. I-95 South in NC? M-m-money.

Let's not shame Joe Snuffy for preventing a speeding ticket -> drug bust or whatever the fuck.

Don't get all 1984 on us, @Omega.

 

I probably have more warning tickets than anyone I know. There's a world of difference between the safe speed for grandpa in an RV on a mountain road and me on a high performance motorcycle. I drive safely, I drive in control, I've been to several riding classes to improve my skill, and I'm also 10+ over the limit on a pretty regular basis. I probably need to pick up a radar detector, not enough people have been warning me.

I'm fine and 100% compliant with traffic laws in urban areas; but speeding in the sticks is just a cash cow in most places.

 

again, is it actually illegal to warn drivers with a light flash?

 

Nope.

You cant realistically make flashing your lights illegal.

/pig

 

What country do you come from, again? There are buckets and buckets of laws for things that are impossible to regulate.

 

Well at night I could use failing to dim within five hundred feet of an oncoming vehicle and within two hundred feet following a vehicle. As far as regulating it, it's like any law, I have to see the violation.

 

Definitely in the South, and most cops I know could care less if I warn other drivers. It's a statistically irrelevant complication, but I feel better if I help out another fellow redneck. Any I've met some great people through that, or stopping to help them change tires, or bale hay or whatever.

As you know omega, you're going to get your share regardless of whether I help out my fellow travelers. And having had a few too many when behind the wheel when I was younger, definitely take the drunks off the road.

And I think msd's point was not necessarily that cops are making things more dangerous, but that people driving 56 in a 55-regulated road that should be mapped at 70 create more problems than the guy doing 72, even though the first guy is right on the money and the second guy is doing 15 over.