Sigh. Drivers suck.

[Amaris]

Please, elaborate.

The Fisticoy Yield Stick is the flagship product of Fisticoy Manufacturing™. The Yield Stick (patent pending) consists of a pressurized launching mechanism mounted on your car's chassis, that engages one of three methods designed to protect you from collision and to render the other vehicle motionless in the process.

Method One)

The Yield Stick Standard™ consists of a high impact titanium swing arm that is released from it's locked "holster" and slashes the tire of the offending vehicle. This results in the driver of said vehicle to pull over, giving you the road space you need to continue driving safely.

The UK version also has a voice activated version that speaks the words "Sorry, young man, but you forced me to resort to this kind of thing. Take some time to see the beauty of the world around you before speeding like a maniac" in the voice of Sir David Attenborough.


Method Two)

The Yield Stick Plus™ consists of a high impact titanium alloy javelin, approximately 18-24 inches in length, that is fired via compressed air into the wheel well of the offending vehicle, resulting in the immobilization of their vehicle by ways of both obstruction and the loss of compression when their engine block is penetrated.


Method Three)

The Yield Stick Digital™ uses a proprietary based code to access more than 1,000 different car computers and shuts off the vehicle automatically. The offending vehicle will simply shut off and the driver will have to pull to the side of the road.


The Fisticoy Yield Stick™ is the latest in compulsory vehicular compliance and will clear the road of assholes who simply cannot drive. Brought to you by Fisticoy Manufacturing™, a division of Fisticoy Worldwide™.

Go All The Way With Fisticoy.


J.

 

[Brolan]

You did the right thing Trekker4747. If you had hit the way you described one, or both cars might have gone spinning through traffic. Deaths may have resulted.

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah. If he had hit me I imagine the result wouldn't be much different than the "pit maneuver" cops used to stop police chases.

 

[Ward Fowler]

^That's always possible. But it still sucks that the ass just drove away unscathed and you have to pick up the tab. When that happened to me, at least the other guy totaled his POS.

 

[tippy]

I'm in NYC about to make a right hand turn onto Twelfth Avenue. I'm on a two lane one way street and a cab pulls alongside me. When traffic clears, the jerk tries to make a right hand turn into the lane I'm headed. He barely brakes on time, missing me by inches. Why did he turn right into my lane instead of pulling into the middle lane?

 

[cultcross]

I take it that the US doesn't have an equivalent of the Motor Insurers' Bureau?
The MIB is a thing we have in the UK that all motor insurance companies must pay into to get an operating licence, and the funds that accumulate are used to compensate people who are in collisions where the at-fault party fails to stop or is uninsured. The trick is, unfortunately, to know it exists; it isn't what you'd call well publicised.

 

[Pingfah]

I had the same thing happen to me a couple years ago, only I was on a motorcycle. Motorcycles don't tend to handle very well when you hit the curb sideways at about 80 mph.

Did you hurt yourself badly?

I did the same thing once although I was only doing about 40, I hit a high kerb at a slight angle, front wheel went over it and the subframe of the bike caught on the edge of the kerb, i slid down the kerb sideways grinding metal for about 15 metres and came to a stop completely unscathed. Didn't even fall off, couldn't believe it.

Only real damage I did was break the stand sensor off, so the bike thought the stand was down and wouldn't start until I rewired it to cut out the sensor.

 

[farmkid]

Is there anything illegal about putting a camera in your car and filming stupid drivers to put on the internet (with their license plates)? Driving is done outside in public, so it's not an invasion of privacy.

No, in fact it can be helpful to the police on occasion. My father-in-law is a highway safety engineer--he designs some of the safety equipment you see along the highway and on road maintenance vehicles. His company builds a large box (called a TMA or truck mounted attenuator) that is attached to the back of trucks parked along the edge of the highway where work is going on. The box absorbs the energy of collisions if someone runs into the truck. Well, his company wanted to see how drivers react around these devices so they mounted a camera to one of these trucks on a job site. He was riding in the truck as the truck slowly drove down the shoulder next to the median on the freeway. At one point, they felt a bump and realized they had been hit from behind. The cop showed up and the driver of the car promptly accused the truck of being in a dangerous position, trying to blame the accident on the driver of the truck. My FIL asked the cop if he wanted to see video of the accident. The cop was a little suspicious of why they had a camera, but understood once it was explained to him. So, my FIL rewound the tape and it showed that the driver had gotten on the freeway at the exit about 1/4 mile back, shot across 4 lanes of traffic and ran straight into the back of the truck. The officer said it was the easiest accident investigation he had ever had and promptly assigned all fault to the driver of the car. The truck driver was naturally relieved.

 

[Lindley]

I take it that the US doesn't have an equivalent of the Motor Insurers' Bureau?
The MIB is a thing we have in the UK

We do, but they're too busy policing aliens to bother with the rest of us.

 

[T'Baio]

Trekker, you seem to get in a lot of near misses and winter condition mess ups, etc. I drive all day, through terrible Ontario winters, back roads with jumping dear and running raccoons, and across the 401, the busiest freeway in North America, regularly. Right now, I spend most of my days driving. I used to deliver auto parts years ago and was driving 9 hours a day for several years. I don't think I've ever had as many driving complaints in my entire life as you seem to have had this year.

You ever think maybe it's you?

Little too preoccupied with what other people are doing so you can complain about it, perhaps?

 

[Mallory]

I take it that the US doesn't have an equivalent of the Motor Insurers' Bureau?
The MIB is a thing we have in the UK that all motor insurance companies must pay into to get an operating licence, and the funds that accumulate are used to compensate people who are in collisions where the at-fault party fails to stop or is uninsured. The trick is, unfortunately, to know it exists; it isn't what you'd call well publicised.

Here, that coverage is something that is part of your own insurance policy. At least it is in the states I lived in.

 

[cultcross]

I take it that the US doesn't have an equivalent of the Motor Insurers' Bureau?
The MIB is a thing we have in the UK that all motor insurance companies must pay into to get an operating licence, and the funds that accumulate are used to compensate people who are in collisions where the at-fault party fails to stop or is uninsured. The trick is, unfortunately, to know it exists; it isn't what you'd call well publicised.

Here, that coverage is something that is part of your own insurance policy. At least it is in the states I lived in.

Well, in reality, it is here; the insurance companies pay into it, so obviously that money eventually comes out of your premiums; it's just a way of keeping a 'claim' off your own personal insurance history.

 

[nevermore]

I take it that the US doesn't have an equivalent of the Motor Insurers' Bureau?
The MIB is a thing we have in the UK that all motor insurance companies must pay into to get an operating licence, and the funds that accumulate are used to compensate people who are in collisions where the at-fault party fails to stop or is uninsured. The trick is, unfortunately, to know it exists; it isn't what you'd call well publicised.

Here, that coverage is something that is part of your own insurance policy. At least it is in the states I lived in.

Well, in reality, it is here; the insurance companies pay into it, so obviously that money eventually comes out of your premiums; it's just a way of keeping a 'claim' off your own personal insurance history.

With a decent insurance company, uninsured driver or hit-and-run claims don't count against you. At least, it didn't when my car got hit in the parking lot once.

 

[cultcross]

Here, that coverage is something that is part of your own insurance policy. At least it is in the states I lived in.

Well, in reality, it is here; the insurance companies pay into it, so obviously that money eventually comes out of your premiums; it's just a way of keeping a 'claim' off your own personal insurance history.

With a decent insurance company, uninsured driver or hit-and-run claims don't count against you. At least, it didn't when my car got hit in the parking lot once.

Being young and male, it costs me an absolute fortune just to achieve legal minimum coverage, so my insurance pretty much has no other perks

 

[RoJoHen]

I don't understand how uninsured drivers even exist. Don't you have to have proof of insurance before you can even get a license? Or is that just an Illinois thing?

 

[tharpdevenport]

If there were other cars, maybe -- even if a waste of time -- you coudl try the Rants & Raves section of your city's Craigslist and see if anyone saw that and maybe got a plate.

Did you pass any local building with outside security cameras, or intersections that have cameras?

 

[nevermore]

I don't understand how uninsured drivers even exist. Don't you have to have proof of insurance before you can even get a license? Or is that just an Illinois thing?

No, you need proof when you get the license or register the car. Then they let it lapse.

 

[RobertVA]

I don't understand how uninsured drivers even exist. Don't you have to have proof of insurance before you can even get a license? Or is that just an Illinois thing?

In Virginia vehicle regstration is available to residents without liability insurance if they contribute an expensive fee to a fund that reimburses the other driver when an uninsured driver causes an collision. This isn't as advantageous as proper liability coverage since the uninsured driver is still responsible for even small liability claims. The goal of the unisured motorist fund is to compensate the other driver when an uninsured driver lacks assets that could be taken in response to a civil judgment.

A driver without a recent history of accidents, a DUI or multiple traffic citations can often obtain proper liability insurance for a price similar to the uninsured motorist fee. Since the mandated liability coverage for avoiding the uninsured motorist fee hasn't been ajusted for inflation for quite a while, additional liability coverage is a good idea that may only require a modest increase in premiums. Totaling someones late model luxury land yacht could easily excede the legal mandated liability insurance.

 

[Mallory]

I don't understand how uninsured drivers even exist. Don't you have to have proof of insurance before you can even get a license? Or is that just an Illinois thing?

Being licensed to drive a car and actually owning one are two different things.

I don't understand how uninsured drivers even exist. Don't you have to have proof of insurance before you can even get a license? Or is that just an Illinois thing?

No, you need proof when you get the license or register the car. Then they let it lapse.

Or they cancel it.

 

[cultcross]

I don't understand how uninsured drivers even exist. Don't you have to have proof of insurance before you can even get a license? Or is that just an Illinois thing?

Having insurance once is sadly not proof of having it for the duration of your driving life. You can sign up for car insurance, use the proof for whatever you need it for, then immediately cancel it. Here, with mandatory 'cooling off' periods for contracts, you can actually do this without paying a thing .