Here’s today’s Clover – the guy who hits the brakes for no obvious or sensible reason. They suddenly slow down – and then speed up! This is aggravating because it forces you to drive the same herky-jerky way – unless you can pass the Clover.
This will usually upset the Clover – and trigger an eruption of horn honking and headlight flashing.
Which makes it very satisfying to pass this particular Clover!
. . .
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We have lots of these idiots in Australia also, esp. in the large cities. I just pass them anyway I can and do NOT use turn signals. As soon as you use a turn signal, they pick up speed.
Amen, to5!
I use a turn signal when necessary, to eliminate confusion about my intentions. The idea that one should signal every time one makes a turn or passes is totem-pole Cloverism.
I always signal because what if I didn’t notice someone who is planning his move based on what I am doing? What if I noticed him but his driving relative to where he is going needs to be modified because of what I am doing? When others signal all the time I can then plan my moves in advance accordingly. I do the same for others.
Then there are the clovers who think I should read their minds. For instance when a right lane becomes a right turn only lane. Not only do the clovers think I am obligated to make space for them to move left, they won’t even be bothered to signal.
My personal term is called “happy brakers”. Very common. Those people who keep ten car lengths of space between themselves and the next car up.. Aggravating as hell. I got that term from a wall street journal article about police preferring dogs – german shepherds in this case – that are “happy biters”. Sometimes they would give their teeth stainless steel crowns because they broke them from biting so much.
Hi Mark,
It’s interesting – so many people either follow much too closely (right on your bumper) or they follow 100 yards behind – which makes passing effectively impossible in most cases, or at least, requires very illegal “speeding.”
Dude. The first rule of making a good video is that video shot freehand (no tripod etc.) unwatchable. Even with electronic stabilization, at best the video will just look amateur and at worst it’s unwatchable and/or nausea inducing. Perhaps you noticed that your videos are all shot from inside of a moving car. Watching hand-held video shot while driving a car doesn’t just make you feel nauseous, it makes you feel Parkinson’s.
I am quite confident the number of people watching videos, and watching more than 5 seconds of them, will at least double if you simply get a good camera and a dashboard/windshield mount. I would suggest the Yi 4K Action cam which has been out a couple years and is down to $100 on Amazon. It can do 4k video at 30fps, which would be great for reviewing new cars, but it also does 1080P at 120fps. With frame rate that high, there’s no motion blur. And with a SOLID windshield/dash mount, and with EIS (image stabilization) turned on, it is buttery smooth.
It’s not quite as convenient as your phone, but they do have an app if you want to upload it using your phone. Or you can just physically take the disk out of the camera and put it in a card slot/USB port on your computer.
Here’s one mounted further back inside the car, a great way to do new car reviews:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XY89EV_YQ
Hi bg,
The problem is I’m running a shoestring operation and cannot afford to spend $100 on a device. The site has been goooo-guhled (articles such as The Turbo Tax, which explained why so many new cars come with very small, highly turbocharged engines are regarded by gooo-guhl as “dangerous and derogatory”) which practically destroyed advertising revenue. I live as best I can – and do what I do – on the support I get from readers. If you can help me buy that rig, I’d order it tomorrow. The “donate” button is at the bottom of every article and on the top right of the main page.
But right now, it’s off the list because I have to keep the lights on and the cats fed!