For example, I’m a white Jewish guy but I’ve adopted the Japanese practice of keeping dedicated house slippers at the front door.
For example, I’m a white Jewish guy but I’ve adopted the Japanese practice of keeping dedicated house slippers at the front door.
I heard that some Japanese drivers flash their hazards as a thank you and it sounded like a cool idea, so I’ve been doing that since.
Probably illegal, but a neat way to thank the car behind you that let you through. Just a couple quick flashes and that’s it, obviously don’t leave them on for a long time.
I’ve always used high beams as a thank you/I’m letting you pass/bro, your headlights are off, depending on the context.
Here in Germany it’s common to quickly flash your hazards when you’re on the highway and enter a traffic jam to signal the person behind you “Watch out, I’m slowing down and won’t accelerate again”
Same, except it don’t work if you’re in front of the car that let you. Haven’t heard of the hazard lights to slow down in traffic, but it makes sense.
Another one that I don’t think is too common is flashing your lights if you’ve passed a speed trap. I see it around here occasionally and it warms my heart every time. Motorcyclists do the same to other 2-wheelers, but tap on their helmet instead of flashing lights.
We started doing so here in Singapore. Even our public busses flash hazard lights twice to convey a thank you sometimes now. In the context of someone giving way to you.
But on a highway when there’s a sudden slowdown in front, we turn on the hazard lights to convey “dude slow down the dude in front is being weird”. Especially useful when there’s torrential downpours.
Isn’t that automatic in some vehicles now, to flash on heavy braking?
Not sure, haven’t been in any that I’ve driven so far. Our cars always have some lag between the latest tech and what’s actually being sold for some reason (tho arguably it’s getting better).
Single flash of hazards to thank someone is common in Brussels traffic, there are a lot of very selfish drivers on the road who never let anyone merge in. Haven’t seen it outside of here, maybe because people are usually a bit more polite or zipper merging works as it should.
Common in all of Belgium to put hazards on to warn people behind you that there is a traffic jam up ahead. I really like that passing the baton system.
Also single flash of high beams to notify someone you’ve seen them and they can cross or pass where they’d otherwise not have right of way. While you should always be as predictable as possible, sometimes doing it wrong resolves the situation faster for everyone.
I also always raise my hand as a thanks when someone stops to let me use a crossing (I have the right of way as a pedestrian but I still feel like sending people a thank you for observing the rules correctly). Did that when walking in Brussels this morning out of sheer habit, realized that is probably actually pretty unusual for a big city. My small town habits are betraying me.