Tired and groggy, you’re driving home late at night, whipping down the side streets and back paths to get home a bit faster, your eyelids drooping, your body achy and sore. Occasionally, there are headlights in the opposite direction, blurry, whiz-by streaks of bright white — shift workers, truck drivers, and party animals all owning the lonely roads, trying to get somewhere quick.
Then suddenly an approaching car flashes their high beams at you. Blinded, you sit up, awake and alert, checking all your mirrors, slowing the car down. What’s going on, you think, until a few seconds later you pass a cop car with its lights off, sitting on the side of the road waiting to catch a speeder, a patient and silent predator waiting for its prey.
“Thank you,” you whisper under your breath, as you drive by under the speed limit. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
* * *
Isn’t it also great that the flasher going the opposite direction really can’t ever get the favor returned? I mean, you don’t know him or her, him or her don’t know you. They just sort of threw the favor out there, a warm passing smile on a dark drive home, with no payback required or expected. No, you might never see each other again, but it’s just The Late-Night Driver’s Pact, a rebellious fight-tha-police stance that helps everyone out in the pocketbook a bit.
So you smile as you drive on, and when you see another car heading the opposite direction, you know what to do.
Flash them high beams, sister. Flash them bright and light up the night.
AWESOME!
Photo from: here
39 Comments
September 10, 2008 at 1:19 am
That IS awesome. I get a particular joy when I get to be the ‘flasher’ also…kinda like proud that I can thumb one at the man..
September 10, 2008 at 9:44 am
Ha ha! This just happened to me on the way to work this morning. (I was the recipient of the flash.) Of course, during daylight, it works better to do the ON / OFF flash. I also do the flash, but not in school zones. You speed in a school zone, you’re on your own, Chester.
September 10, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Here’s another awesome idea for avoiding tickets: Don’t drive so fast. It’s not a competition, and no points are being awarded
March 21, 2009 at 7:10 am
Here’s another awesome idea: You’re on a highway that’s, for all intents and purposes, empty. You’re tired, it’s late at night, and life’s too short to fear edging over the limit, toeing the line, sneaking cookies when nobody’s looking.
Sure, you’d never get hired if you told the place you’re applying at you sneaked (snucked?) cookies from the cookie jar, but there’s the catch. Nobody’s that stuffy.
September 12, 2008 at 6:53 am
This manoeuvre is specifically outlawed under Irish law.
For a time, a second cop car was deployed to catch the “flasher”.
March 21, 2009 at 7:22 pm
WOOOW! that is very UNawesome!
October 26, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Another reason why I don’t live in Ireland…
December 10, 2009 at 1:42 am
How do you have, like, ANY reasons not to live in Ireland?
That place is nirvana.
May 12, 2010 at 6:30 pm
That really doesn’t surprise me, and its actually pretty clever… you know, for the law-making kind of folk. I believe the same sort of thing is still in effect in some of the smaller towns of Australia… but really… in those towns, no one speeds. everything is relaxed.
September 13, 2008 at 11:12 pm
If was better in the old days when my car did not have DRL’s. I could flash the lights by cutting them off and on instead of using the high beams, thereby blinding the oncoming driver temporarily. This also works well to warn oncoming traffic of potential road hazards like that downed tree or pedestrians.
September 28, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Coming home late one morning, I flashed an on-coming car. Felt great about it, until a cop pulled me over. I denied flashing the car but it turned out I had flashed the cop! No ticket, but I got long boring lecture. I am still a flasher and have been the lucky “flashee” of many of my flashing cohorts.
October 2, 2008 at 12:40 pm
For a long time, I embraced the driver’s code of flashing, but have since come to realize that if my flashee doesn’t get snagged, then the next driver will. It isn’t my business to meddle in the wheelings of the universe in this way – to have a hand in deciding who gets caught and who slips by. I do like the idea of shielding my fellow motorists from revenue-hungry law enforcement, but in this case, I leave it to a higher office.
November 17, 2009 at 5:25 pm
But remember, you arent the only one flashing. If those behind you continue to flash everyone is warned.
November 13, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Ohh, Mark, such a good citizen!
Of course, Mark doesn’t realize that if it’s late at night, nobody is around, there is no chance of kids walking across the street, then the speed limit is sort of silly. If it says go 45, going 55 is not going to hurt anyone, except yourself possibly. But hey, the police need their money.
December 18, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Tom,
What about the person who walks home from the pub late at night rather than drive while under the influence? Or a friend of mine that walks for hours at night to wear himself out enough to counter his back injury pain so he can sleep?
Also, roads are designed with an upper speed limit (I’m an engineer who used to work for various road authorities) so disobeying those limits can have tragic consequences. Drivers don’t just ‘hurt’ themselves; there’s the emergency services personnel who are left to clean up the mess, the hospital staff who deal with the trauma, the families and friends who are left to either care for someone unable to care for themselves or arrange funerals and colleagues and employers who have to find new staff…the list just goes on and on and on.
If I were speeding I’d rather learn the lesson by copping a hefty fine and losing points on my licence than running into a tree and ending up in a wheelchair.
January 4, 2009 at 12:33 am
Why would you warn someone that is taking a liberty with your safety?
From the original post: “Tired and groggy, you’re driving home late at night, whipping down the side streets and back paths to get home a bit faster, your eyelids drooping, your body achy and sore.”
Doesn’t this sound like someone that is going too fast and is going to fall asleep and hit someone, and in what is probably a residential neighbourhood as well?
Sorry, I’ve investigated too many fatal collisions to sympathize here.
February 1, 2009 at 8:46 pm
I use to do it to tell them to take off their high beams because they always blind me.
March 21, 2009 at 7:25 pm
very awesome indeed, dont listen to the naysayers.
April 1, 2009 at 1:00 pm
hear hear!
May 26, 2009 at 8:08 pm
If only the bankrupt cities would stop hiring police as a solution to their money woes. Speed limits == Revenue generation.
There are plenty of laws on the books to handle the people driving dangerously, picking an arbitrary number that pays no attention to the mechanical condition of the car, weather, lighting, and other factors is ridiculous.
Next these naysayers will say that speed cameras are for peoples safety also.
BTW don’t blame the cops, blame the chief and mayor!
May 26, 2009 at 9:49 pm
About a year ago, the police were wanting to stop flashers in our area. The courts got involved and deemed that flashing is good karma and as long as it isn’t overly distracting to other drivers, it’s allowed.
Of course, most of the time someone flashes their beams at me is because there are moose about to cross the road. Then I am extremely grateful for the warning
September 29, 2009 at 9:49 pm
This is what America is all about! Helping each other stay away from those police. Ha. “it’s just The Late-Night Driver’s Pact, a rebellious fight-tha-police stance”. Love it! This happened to me a few nights ago..bless you kind stranger.
February 25, 2010 at 10:46 pm
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March 3, 2010 at 12:47 pm
I live in Ontario, Canada, where there was a big kerfuffle (love that word!) last summer because cops were giving tickets to drivers who did this. They were charged with interfering with a police officer in the course of his duty, or some such crap. Whoever fought it, beat it, because it’s an incorrect interpretation of the law, but a lot didn’t and got burned.And they wonder why we lose respect.
March 4, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Your post is great,that’s all what I can say,I hope you may post more and more!
March 29, 2010 at 11:50 pm
I love this too! But then …. it makes me think about the urban legend of the guy in the backseat, and I ALWAYS turn around to check, heart pounding, just in case….
April 18, 2010 at 8:19 pm
If one car slows down, the ones behind him slow down and we all benefit. The fact that he had a close call will make him think twice about speeding, too, I think, but those habits die hard. Maybe we should go around flashing our lights to make people slow down even when there are no cops around ;)
April 23, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Yeah, I regularly flash people speeding regardless of police presence.
And I’ve been pulled over for flashing my lights to warn drivers, told I was getting a ticket for ‘interfering in a police operation’, countered with a “do you know which section of the Road Traffic Act or the Criminal Code that is under?” and then surprisingly was let off with only a warning.
It’s all bluff!
April 19, 2010 at 8:12 am
I love that! It’s like a wink to the other driver. ‘Don’t worry man, I got your back’
April 20, 2010 at 6:23 pm
I liked the older cars who had the high beams button on the floor next to the brakes…much easier to use. Carmakers should bring back the floorboard brights!!!!
April 21, 2010 at 12:56 pm
This one reminded me of something I love,a bit similar I think. Being on a bus and another bus drives past going to where you have come from and you spot the driviers giving each other a secret wave or nod. I actually love that moment.
April 21, 2010 at 5:12 pm
I’ve never had that happen. Around here, if someone flashes their highbeams at you it means your’s are on and are currently blinding them…
April 22, 2010 at 7:37 pm
It’s really cool when this happens in Jamaica. You won’t just get one flasher, but about 5 minutes of oncoming traffic flashing to warn you about one speed trap. No one likes the cops there.
May 22, 2010 at 8:09 pm
I too love this.. however my sister-in-law recently recieved a relatively large fine because she flashed a line up of oncoming cars and there was a ghost police car in the bunch. Now I feel nervous to be the flasher.
June 2, 2010 at 2:27 am
Hmmm, in much of Europe and the Gulf, drivers flash at the car in front to indicate they’re coming through and so get the hell out of the way. The Germans even have a name for it: die Lichthupe, roughly translated as “light horn.”
July 25, 2010 at 5:53 pm
This is talking about flashing an oncoming car, not from behind. Flashing the car in front of you over here means “You’re in the passing lane going way too slow for me. GET THE *&%#$ OUTTA MY WAY!!!”
July 1, 2010 at 3:29 pm
I always do this I’m just kind of scared to do it at night though cause…what if the person I’m flashing is a cop? Do you get in trouble for that?
July 18, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Just got back from Morocco, got saved by multiple flashes there too!
August 12, 2010 at 12:54 am
When I was a kid my mums BF, always drove with us in the car drunk, really drunk. I was a kid and it scared me, and people would flash him all the time, he would then take another route and was not caught.
I wish he was.
I will not warn because you don’t know if its a drunk man about to kill his family or another innocent.