Travelling on the freeway each day, morning and afternoon, is the lot of many of us, it seems.

This necessitates a lot of lane-changing and weaving, often without much warning. This, in turn, necessitates a lot of gesticulating and mimed (well, it appears to be mimed, as we all have windows up and air-conditioning on) shouting and gratuitous, unheeded advice and observations about parentage and proclivities.

I feel traffic would flow more smoothly if everyone's car sound system was hijacked to play the same musical score simultaneously, overriding the current "drivetime" crap of wannabe comedians and loud, jarring music. Different roads and different days would, obviously, have different musical scores played across the system.

That way, a single piece of music could be played to subtly influence all drivers to follow a particular rhythm whilst driving. More experienced users of the system would soon pick up the habit of driving to the music and cut down on the close calls and belligerent outbursts I see played out repeatedly.

Eventually it may be possible to film the resulting traffic behavioural patterns at work, to entertain others and promote the cause of safe traffic choreography.
-- UnaBubba, Apr 17 2012

...could use this technology... Road_20tunes
[hippo, Apr 19 2012, last modified Apr 23 2012]

dancing cop http://www.cbsnews..../watch/?id=5377254n
[xandram, Apr 19 2012]

Relevant - what was playing on the radio? Fatal_20Auto_20Collision_20Song
By my perverse logic - if your song isn't playing, you know you'll be okay... [Custardguts, Apr 23 2012]

Instant Replay Instant_20replay
for [CustardGuts] [hippo, Apr 23 2012]

I nearly died this morning. An articulated B-double truck (60 tonne; 34 wheels) zigged when it should have zagged, putting me into the skinny breakdown lane at 110kmh.
-- UnaBubba, Apr 19 2012


Perhaps a cymbal clash could be inserted at this point in the music score? Your scheme might work in Qld but, from what I can tell, all West Australians drive to the tune of their own piper - regardless of any external influences. (Glad you made it)
-- AusCan531, Apr 19 2012


I swear I've seen 50% of my hair turn grey since 8am. I thought I was fucking gone. Frigging great truckload and trailer of mining machinery parts. It would have turned me into 105kg of strawberry jam.
-- UnaBubba, Apr 19 2012


Thanks [hippo]. I think of that idea every time I run over the rumble strip on the side of the road into town.
-- UnaBubba, Apr 19 2012


Glad to hear you're not dead, [UB].

Meanwhile, [AusCan531] is right about sandgroper driving habits. I think it comes from having grown up with near-empty roads. When I first visited in the mid-nineties, locals would call it a traffic jam if there were three cars ahead of them at a red light.

I wonder whether something similar applies in Moscow, where, I think, there's been a comparable explosion in traffic density over a couple of decades.
-- pertinax, Apr 19 2012


After seeing many, many examples on Youtube, I've come to the conclusion that it'd be a good idea to have a video camera on the dash recording a loop whenever you're driving. Just forward the .mp4 file of the lawless truckie to his parent company, or the police, or both.

People should be held to account for putting others at risk.

As a last resort, it'd be good fodder for the coroner....
-- Custardguts, Apr 23 2012


That makes me wish I'd had an .mp4 cam on my helmet last year, since I can't actually remember the crash itself. All I've had to go on are witness accounts and the scant police reconstruction. Maybe with video evidence I could secure federal funding for my campaign to extinctify Cervus Displacia.

You'll all thank me someday.

[+]
-- Alterother, Apr 23 2012


I thought about the [Fatal Auto Collision Song] idea not long after the incident.

I recall an interview by an auto magazine of a senior test driver for one of Australia's automotive manufacturers, asking him what he thought of a test car's sound system. His response was rather telling. "Remove it. There are too many things to do already, in a moving car for the average, or even above-average, driver to operate a vehicle safely."
-- UnaBubba, Apr 23 2012


Too true. When I was a teenager, I slid off of the road in a snow storm because a favorite song came on the radio and I reached for the volume knob at the wrong moment. Nobody was hurt and I learned a valuable lesson, although it's one I've been unable to impart to my wife. How can an otherwise sensible woman, someone who normally serves as the voice of reason in our relationship, persist in her belief that it's perfectly safe to apply make-up while driving? It only takes one little distraction...
-- Alterother, Apr 23 2012


A mascara brush through the pupil will change her mind, surely?

I recall a road safety expert explaining that crossing a 4 lane road without traffic lights was actually more difficult than landing a 747 on manual controls.
-- UnaBubba, Apr 23 2012


[Custardguts] <cough> - see link!
-- hippo, Apr 23 2012


Of course the reverse is also true, and may constitute a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. If "your song" comes on via random happenstance, you may become distressed/distracted and subsequently have a fatal auto collision you otherwise wouldn't have had.

Spooky.

....Anyhoo, did you get the fucker's numberplate or company name?
-- Custardguts, Apr 23 2012


[Hippo] - nice. Don't recall having seen that before.
-- Custardguts, Apr 23 2012


[Custard] I just had a flick through it to remind myself of it and was shocked by [StarChaser]'s annotation - people used to see 100Mb as a really sizeable chunk of memory.
-- hippo, Apr 23 2012


//       If "your song" comes on via random happenstance, you may become distressed/distracted and subsequently have a fatal auto collision //

In college I participated in a classmate's project involving Pavlovian conditioning; in this case, her goal was to help insomniacs get healthy sleep by administering OTC sleep aids and playing the song 'Milk' by Garbage (a nice soothing track, for those who haven't heard it) while we drifted off. Cut forward many years later, to my wife unknowingly putting that album into the CD player while we were touring the Blue Ridge Parkway... I didn't actually drive off the road, but it was a close-run thing.
-- Alterother, Apr 23 2012


Private subcontractor, pulling the trailers for a large national firm. I missed the rego because I was dodging the concrete crash barrier.
-- UnaBubba, Apr 23 2012



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