Re: Advice to Drivers of Small Pointless Japanese Cars

In message <kmP7k.5223$pe5.44@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, "Ulysses"
<eatmyspam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>This is because they want to *win.*  Never mind that there are 27 billion
>cars in front of them which puts them in 27 billion and 1th place.  This
is
>just like the people who speed up to get to the red light--the one who
gets
>there first wins.  They use more gas, put more wear on the car, and
probably
>have a lot more incidents and pay more for insurance so I'm not sure what
>they think they are winning.

What you just described is what we call a "Sloth Coaster" - someone
who accelerates ever-so-gently away from a stoplight that has just
turned green, and will take their foot off the gas to coast as much as
possible if they believe that they will have to stop at the next
intersection. They justify this behavior by claiming that they are
"saving wear and tear" on their vehicles. Of course, they never bother
to try and quantify *how much* they are actually saving; if they did,
they'd realize that having to perform one less brake job over the
entire life of the car doesn't even come close to making up for all
the time they waste - both their own time and (especially) the time of
every driver that is stuck behind them. 

Sloth Coasters are all smug and sanctimonious because they usually
coast up to a light just after it has turned red. "You see?" they crow
to anyone within earshot. "Good thing I coasted because I wouldn't
have made the light anyway!" What these guys fail to realize, of
course, is that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. By driving so slowly,
Sloth Coasters make their own red lights because nowadays traffic
signals are controlled by sensors embedded in the pavement; if there
are no cars close by to trip the sensors, the light turns red.  So
instead of causing "wear and tear" on their engines and brakes, they
sit there idling at all the red lights and getting 0 miles per gallon.
In the long run it probably costs them more in wasted gasoline than
they save in maintenance costs.

The other bogus claim you hear a lot is "the guys who don't Sloth
Coast never get where they're going any faster." Well, that's complete
bull****. I've told the story in r.a.d of how I caught up to my Sloth
Coasting co-worker and beat him to the office by several minutes,
primarily because I made it through at least one traffic light that he
did not. There have been countless instances where I have passed some
Sloth and made it through a "stale" green light, while the Sloth gets
caught by the red. I get there faster often enough to make it well
worth the effort to try.

Another big reason you'll see people "racing" to the light is when
they are trying to escape the Phalanx of Sloth - that tight lattice of
vehicles that inevitably forms around these Sloth Coaster types,
clogging up the entire road. It would be one thing if these buffoons
would confine their slow driving to the right hand lane, leaving other
lanes free for faster traffic to get by. But NOOOOOOOO, Sloth Coasters
coast in every available lane, and they don't give a danm about anyone
else. If by some miracle a normal-speed driver manages to make it
through one of these cluster****s, is it any wonder that they're going
to make DAMN SURE that they stay out of it, even if that means
"racing" to be first in line at the next red light? Maybe they don't
get ahead right this second, but as soon as that light turns green
they will be FREE of that cloud of inanity, and eventually they WILL
make it through a green light that changes to red by the time the
Sloth Swarm reaches that same intersection.

So next time you see someone "racing to the red light," consider that
they may be thinking several moves ahead. Checkmate, Sloth!
-- 
Please remember not to feed ANY of the trolls - we want them ALL to
starve.