Was behind a Chevy van on Rutherford in Brampton a few years back with a cardboard NO BRAKE LIGHTS sign taped on the back door. Though it was pretty altruistic, with it being Brampton and all.
The sign is appreciated, for sure.
A couple of years ago I was following someone on a back country road. It was winter and the roads were mostly snow covered. They were driving lazily and sloppily, rolling through 4-way stops, accelerating and decelerating really slowly. They didn't appear to be drunk, but they were probably old, or unused to driving on snow, or both.
In any case, I follow them for a kilometer or two and they're quite a lot below the speed limit the whole way. I'm a bit impatient, but fine, maybe they don't have snow tires. I wasn't tailgating, but at one section they slowed down significantly more to let me pass. It wasn't a great passing zone, but it was a legit passing zone.
So I pull out to make the pass and as I get alongside them I realize I've read the entire situation wrong. They weren't slowing down to let me pass, they were slowing down to turn left into a driveway, and I suddenly understood that none of their rear lights were working. No brake lights, no turn signals, nothing.
They'd rolled through the previous intersections so slowly without stopping that I had thought they weren't actually using their brakes at all. Even if I had clued in to that, it wouldn't have prepared me to think that all of their lights were out (if indeed they had ever even attempted to use a turn signal). I'm glad we didn't end up in contact because a second one way or the other and I would have T-boned them right into their driver's door.
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