As a young driver I was not aware of all these different ideas about flashing your lights - Although I was aware it may be a signal to say there are police upahead or that there is someone in your backseat waiting to kill you..(I thought I would add a little humour) Ever hear that Urban Legend?

 

On the way to collage, I was stopped by an officer. He was irritated I did not dim my lights and nearly gave me a ticket. Honest, it was an electrical problem....

 

There is the general flashing at oncoming traffic that appears to, or did forget to change to low beam when driving. Guilty of leaving them on myself on some long trips down empty back roads, but the flashing to pass I have not found much in my experience. If I have had someone flash thier lights, they would pull up beside me, tempting me to race. This happened much more often in my previous car ... a RX-7. An interesting piece of information about this car related to this subject. There are two lenses i know for sure on the 86-91 models that are very commonly known as Flash-To-Pass lenses you can buy with or with out additional daytime running lamps, the flash actually comes from the high beam when the flip up headlights are down. http://www.mazdatrix.com/n-1a.htm

I have always thought it was common knowledge to signal semi trucks to let them know they are clear to pull back over and I have found that most of them will give you the thank you flash in return as others had said. I have done this many times especially when I am keeping right conserving fuel/obeying speed limits.

Yes, people will flash their lights to inform you of a speed trap, and in most places they will consider it illegal because, imho, a speed trap is set up more for making some extra money more than safety issues. We have a few towns on our highways that take the speeds down from 65 to 35 within 100 - 200 yards. if you are distracted or don't know the area, they get you. The town looks really nice and the roads are always nicely paved, but the town is less than a mile wide lol. I cannot remember how many people and amount of money one officer brought in, but he was well known in central florida for those who traveled north on 441 from Orlando to Gainesville .

Although there will always be ignorant people who use anything to exhibit thier anger, most people are reasonable and will use thier high-beams sparingly. I know why you started this post, I have read the thread where someone was getting heated and seemed to misunderstand the whole issue and became slanderous. I don't know much I just signed up yesterday, but from what i have read this person sounds like a 'troll' lol you never know though, some other factors in thier life may have made them a little testy, but didn't they drive a sub-10mpg vehicle anyway? Interesting place for them to be, hope they can learn something and change thier views and possibly thier vehicle!!! My old 7.6L big block had about the same mileage

everyone have a great day and happy holidays!!!

 

Call me old fashioned but I say let the police do their job with the speed traps. I never signal that there is one up ahead. (although in my younger less wiser years I did). Only for the simple reason that it's much easier for an officer to catch someone that is not just speeding but also suspect in other types of crimes. I'd rather have he/she pull over a suspect drunk or druggie etc and make the roads, and life in general, a tad safer.

On a much lighter note, 20% of all accidents are caused by drunk drivers, the other 80% are caused by sober folks...

 

Go find the statistic on the number accidents caused by driving while tired. I think that ranks even higher.

 

Yeah, so is speeding, what's your point. Actually I don't think it is but I'm sure if you did this to an oncoming police officer, he may pull you over for something stupid.

 

20% seems low - are you sure?

Drowsy driving I got pulled over for that trying to do an all-nighter Dallas-to-Denver run. If I'm going to do a 15-hour run, it's got to be after a good night's sleep.