The Top 40

Same reasons that sometimes trees will leap out onto the road for the purpose of hitting a automobile: first instance of that was in 1895 when a tree sent a root outwards towards the road and snared one of the first cars in Ohio, killing the driver.

There is also a completely fictitious account that in the same year the only two cars in Ohio collided with each other. Being clearly a work of fiction, you can probably believe every word of it.

That article was retarded. It claims a person, after a moment of inattentiveness, might hit the brake slightly which is then telegraphed through the cars behind it resulting in a slow down and eventual traffic jam. Then later it says no one is to blame for causing traffic jams. Huh? How about the "person that was inattentive!!!!!"?

You rarely see traffic jams or any other shenanigans on the autobahns and a clues as to why is that they don't have cup holders in their 120 mph race cars, and even the slightest infraction is treated extremely seriously.

"on looker delay", "rubbernecking". I never heard of these years ago, when driving on the 'jersey turnpike if you slowed down, never mind you just didn't slow down unless you had a REAL reason or you would be rear-ended.

Sigh... This keeps getting rediscovered every so often. Seattle mad-scientist Bill Beaty published on this back in 1998 and he links to earlier works.

http://trafficwaves.org/

Two-footed drivers kill and Charleston is full of them. And Volvo drivers who brake at the slightest disruption within 500 yds of their path. Just easier to hit the brakes than to calculate your speed, their speed, their trajectory and merely cover the brake pedal in case things go sideways. Nope. Full-on brake pedal.

Driving in Mexico was a frightful thing to get used to, but you never, ever hit the brakes lest you be charged with causing an accident. You fixed the horn before you fixed the brakes.

Insurance companies pay people to drive in heavy traffic and light up the brake lights. I know for I worked for a while. $60/hr plus 15% net of first year premium increases on the offending driver.

Very lucrative work. You only work maybe 1½ hours in the morning and the same in the PM. A switch on the wheel does the trick, you never actually touch your brakes. If someone hits you then you can sue too.

Who says there aren't any jobs in America.

Why do they do that, how do they (insurance company) benefit from it?

I'm spoofing ya Ghost. But I wouldn't put it past them to do something like that. They make money of the premium hike, kick back from the body shop, steer you to a new car dealer, ka-ching.

I would grieve much if some tariss attacked the insurance industry.

While sitting in my truck at a store waiting for my wife to buy some stuff a woman ran into my drivers door. Again, I was parked and the other driver was moving, and rooting around in her purse. I had 3 people in other cars and the store manager as witnesses. State Farm found me 70% at fault. When I balked the guy behind the desk said, and I shit you not, "Then sue us." It took every fiber to not go over that desk and latch onto his neck. No I didn't sue.

If you hate auto insurance, thank a lawyer. Overburdened with high-paid actuaries, the auto companies can't afford to pay people to cause accidents, that'a a lawyer's wheelhouse: he can't afford not to.

I've worked for both big-name auto insurers and the hardest thing is to get the ignorant to understand the purpose of insurance and liability. Every yokel gets a lawyer, comes into the office making noise and ....I can't help them. I can't get them their money or pay their bills or even answer their questions because they tied our hands with a lawyer. "What do I have insurance for?" one whined at me. "You tell ME," was my reply. Which shut him up.

To pay a lawyer, apparently. Thus has the industry changed to an adversarial one much like medicine has. We are here for the parasites to battle each other while they devour us.

Maybe I'll do like Dakin suggests, get a bicycle, and put a motor on it, solar powered. Or just stay my ass at home....cause the idiocy out there is getting too dangerous.