Could Letting Drivers Communicate via LED Screen Help Quell Road Rage?

Candidate buyers:<p>1. Ragers. Not known for their apologies. So screw them. They don&#x27;t need another tool to communicate their rage.<p>2. Recipients of rage. Is this so they can offer an apology? Surely nobody believes they need to apologize for their driving frequently enough to buy and install such a device. And if they want to respond to the rager with a plausible defense message, well, that&#x27;s <i>not</i> going to quell a rager!<p>3. Those who want to broadcast an undirected opinion. Mod the device to bypass the 50 sanitized preset messages and you can show everyone your political beliefs, meme, or pithy quote. So basically dynamic LED bumper stickers. Free speech, fine, but more distraction. Yawn.

I could have used this today. I was travelling up a single track road near Glastonbury in Somerset when I came across a very large camper van stuck blocking the entire road. There was nothing else for it but for me to reverse for 1&#x2F;4 mile back to the main road where the road widened. However every car that came up behind was flashing their lights angrily and couldnt get what I was trying to do. Some LED&#x27;s with a message relayed back to the first car could have saved a lot of anger and time.<p>Trouble is, the UK Police and authorities are against even hands free phones (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;inews.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;technology&#x2F;hands-free-mobile-phones-while-driving-could-be-banned-mps-plans&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;inews.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;technology&#x2F;hands-free-mobile-phones...</a>) , let alone a mechanism to communicate visually with other drivers. I could see it getting banned here before it even takes off, which is a shame.

I predict this would lead to “road trolling” which would probably end up causing more road rage. A better solution, without giving up privacy, might be a social system of flagging people for unsafe driving, aggressive driving, etc. Set the threshold really high. You don’t want to take action against the old lady who inconvenienced everyone by breaking down in a turn lane one day, you want the ones who day after day get flagged. I imagine everyone would drive a lot nicer if there were consequences to aggressive driving. Just like everyone wants to play nice suddenly when the cops are around. Boldest speed demon in the world suddenly finds he can drive 55 after all.

I want a sign that keeps flashing &quot;YOU ARE TOO CLOSE&quot; when someone comes closer than N meters, where N is roughly my speed in km&#x2F;h divided by 10. My number one annoyance on roads in Poland is that a lot of drivers don&#x27;t give a damn about safe distance. It&#x27;s not fun when you&#x27;re driving 90 km&#x2F;h with a small kid in the back and have another car stuck 2 meters behind you.

This is about as dumb as training kindergarteners to hide during a school shooting. It doesn&#x27;t address the root problem, angry people who can&#x27;t handle their emotions in public.

It doesn&#x27;t appear to be using LEDs intended for outdoor brightness. I suspect it won&#x27;t be very readable during the day, especially given most cars have tinted rear windows.

BP is currently distributing a thumbs up display along these lines in New Zealand [0]. I&#x27;ve yet to see one in the wild.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bp.com&#x2F;en_nz&#x2F;new-zealand&#x2F;home&#x2F;products-and-services&#x2F;promotions-and-rewards&#x2F;thank-you-button.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bp.com&#x2F;en_nz&#x2F;new-zealand&#x2F;home&#x2F;products-and-servi...</a>

It&#x27;d probably just used to give people a giant ascii finger.

We will communicate purely in emojis, obviously. No words necessary. A square of LED hieroglyph expressing annoyance, sorrow, gratitude, yes I want fries with that, etc.<p>Imagine it. Doesn&#x27;t it feel totally natural?

I have tought of this before. Maybe a &quot;HuD&quot; display (with dash mounted lcd as an alternate) where not just other drivers but the road and traffic authorities communicate things to the driver. Like tell them what lanes to stay on based on destination,real time info about the current lane,notify users when they drive too slow&#x2F;fast for their lane and communicate other drivers intent and much more...except define it as international protocol standard.

If it’s just a button that flashes “Sorry!” then maybe. Anything beyond that will a) create distraction for the driver and &#x2F; or b) just be used to say “go fuck yourself”

Someone is smoking their socks.<p>Car twitter is the last thing we need both from distraction point of view &amp; just de-escalating situations.

Drivers need less distractions, not more. Unless cars start requiring copilots to operate, stop adding &quot;features&quot;.

This is highly unsafe and possibly illegal. You cannot have a metal box (or anything with more mass than a few sheets of paper) suction cupped to the window as it will detach and smash the back of your head in an accident, probably killing you.

I&#x27;ve often thought that it would be nice to have a chording keyboard on my steering wheel or shifter so that I could type while driving. Sending those messages to a screen, or to the car directly via radio transmission would be an interesting advancement.

I could see a use a screen saying, I&#x27;m travelling as fast as the guy after me, so back off. It&#x27;s so annoying to be after those drivers that can&#x27;t seem to understand it&#x27;s not your fault that you&#x27;re driving so slow.

Bumper sticker: sorry in advance.

this isn&#x27;t anything new - see CarWink[1] from 2 years ago for example. I didn&#x27;t become a backer of that kickstarter iirc because one couldn&#x27;t make their own graphics or translate the text for non-English speaking countries etc.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kickstarter.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;503429569&#x2F;carwink-making-the-road-a-more-connected-place" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kickstarter.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;503429569&#x2F;carwink-makin...</a>

Have these people never seen Twitter?!?

I would just like a horn that can blow to the car in back of me. thanks.

Can&#x27;t wait to see someone mod this and display expletives on it.

Have you seen a Facebook thread recently? This can only end poorly.

How about training drivers to not be dumbasses instead?

There was one of these for sale years ago. You put it in rear window and you could scroll messages along it.

Well, letting hackers communicate on a moderated HN still doesn’t quell nerd rage.<p>So what we really need is rude driver shadow-banning, using “SEP Field” technology from the Hitchhiker’s Guide:<p><i>”An SEP is something we can&#x27;t see, or don&#x27;t see, or our brain doesn&#x27;t let us see, because we think that it&#x27;s somebody else&#x27;s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it&#x27;s like a blind spot.”</i><p>PS. See also, Betteridge’s Law of Headlines.

Betteridge&#x27;s Law of Headlines strikes again!