posted on Sat Mar 09, 2002 4:11 am
Scoop and squat used to be a traffic maneuver practiced solely by insurance con artists. The assailant cuts in front of an unsuspecting motorist without warning, forcing an unsafe interval. Before the innocent motorist can adjust to a safe interval, the assailant slams on his brakes, usually causing a collision. Most places had traffic laws that unconditionally automatically blamed the driver who was behind, making it easy for the conmen to win a case in court if need be. But usually the victim would be so flustered, and hold the notion that collision == accident that he or she would admit guilt! A nasty scam, to be sure.
These days there ain't no such thing as a safe interval, of course. If you even tried to practice that, not only would cars swoop in to fill up the space a lot faster than you could decelerate to make it, but many would reward your good driving by slamming on the brakes out of spite. These days it's not uncommon to have SUV drivers cut into the tiniest spaces to do the s'n's, just to throw their weight around, bith figuratively and literally. Ironically the very same SUV driver will happily dawdle along in the fast lane, holding up a column of cars as long as he/she can.
Jaraxle, I'd love to see your bird run. A friend of mine had a '69 and I was so envious! The back seat was pretty sweet too.
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Stick a fork() in it!
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Speed on 2002-03-09 04:15 ]</font>
My personal preference is to have a well-balanced car for everyday use. I love gratuitous acceleration, but these days the reality is that 99% of the time, that acceleration is being used to escape road-raging SUV, truck and Lexus drivers. And the handling is used 99% of the time to escape the "scoop and squat" maneuver that's all the rage, literally.
