# Flashing headlights: good karma or bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 28, 2002, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashing-headlights-good-karma-or-bad/106055 "2002-04-28T03:56:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashing-headlights-good-karma-or-bad/106055/21 "2002-04-29T22:39:55Z")
I’ve never heard of this practice before! But, it sounds like good karma to me. How is it any different than leaning over to your neighbor and saying “Hey! You’d better slow down! There’s a speed trap up ahead!” I mean, would any of us just sit back and not warn someone that they need to slow down? Since when is reminding someone to SLOW DOWN a bad thing? I wouldn’t think that this warniing would be reliable enough to allow a person to freely break speed laws. (As in, “Oh, no one has flashed their lights at me yet, so it must be OK to go 100 mph.”) You can’t _count_ on people warning you. All speeding is done at the risk of getting a speeding ticket. So if once in a while someone warns you to slow down, where’s the harm? They are only reminding you of the reality that you CAN get a speeding ticket. And perhaps this will convince you that it’s just not worth it to speed, since you can get a ticket at any time. I am flabbergasted that flashing as a warning would be illegal. This to me shows that what the police really want is additional revenue from ticket fees, and that they are less interested in getting people to slow down. Kind of like, “Damn! You got them to stop breaking the law! Now we can’t squeeze money out of them! Well, I’ll give you a ticket instead, and squeeze money out of _you_!” This doesn’t seem right. ---
**Author:** ![tourbot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@tourbot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tourbot)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashing-headlights-good-karma-or-bad/106055/22 "2002-04-29T23:04:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chris Luongo \* > \*\* > By the way, what’s with all this “speed=collisions” sentiment here? Stupidity causes collisions. Speed would only be a factor if you were going so fast that your car is sliding when you go around corners. > \*\* I don’t think anyone said that speeding in and of itself results in accidents. However, it certainly can make them more likely for a number of reasons. The easiest of these to understand is that you have less time to react to the unexpected at high speed. And it is cannot be disputed that the damage from an accident at higher speeds will always be much greater. ---
**Author:** ![occ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8c91f0/32.png) [@occ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/occ)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashing-headlights-good-karma-or-bad/106055/23 "2002-04-30T03:42:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by alice\_in\_wonderland \* > \*\*Actually, there was a really bad car accident in Calgary a few years back when someone flashed there lights and an oncoming motorist got disoriented (it was at night and I think the road was wet). The drive crashed into the bridge overpass - I don’t remember totally, but I think there were a few people killed. > \*\* And this will (and does!) happen EVERY SINGLE TIME you do this! Moo-ha-ha-ha! 😉 Seriously, though, I’d file this under “freak accident”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashing-headlights-good-karma-or-bad/106055.md?page=1)