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Driving PSA

Title text: This PSA brought to you by several would-be assassins who tried to wave me in front of speeding cars in the last month and who will have to try harder next time.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a CLUELESS BOT DRIVING AT 72.42048 km/h (20.1168 m/s) (outpaced by raptor) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.

A PSA is a Public Service Announcement. Some drivers, when having priority by the rules of the road (termed "right of way", in legal statutes), will let others take it before them. This comic is saying that people who exhibit this behavior are actually Terminator-style assassins, sent to kill people by sending them into contention with other traffic and making it look like an accident.

Despite the PSA's conspiratorial presentation, this is good advice. This gesture is sometimes called "the wave of death", because it is common for such "generous" drivers to forget about other lanes that also have priority over the crossing driver or pedestrian, and cluelessly wave them through right into the path of another car which is traveling at full speed. Always check for yourself that your way is clear, and if your view is blocked, sit tight. In this comic, there is a queue of vehicles (including a large tractor-trailer truck) held up by the 'considerate' driver that would obscure the immediate view of the moving vehicle at the most potentially dangerous time. Randall's exaggeration has comical intent and also could help make the advice more memorable - and therefore more likely to save lives.

The title text explains that Randall made this PSA because he has experienced this multiple times in the last month. Since this behavior is often catastrophically dangerous, he believes the action could only be performed by time-travelling assassins. As such, he has not accepted the right of way, and thus believes himself to have evaded death. He then says that, since he already knows this trick, the assassins should try harder. Such a claim that assassins are actively trying to murder him using "right of way" would be treated as a conspiracy theory by most people.

Alternate interpretation of the waving gesture

Note that in this comic, as illustrated, there is potentially sufficient room for the waiting car to pass the first set of lanes and (illegally) stop next to the median, protected from passing traffic on both sides, to stop halfway through its left turn to wait for the second stream of traffic to subside. Waiting in this turning area next to the median is a common yet illegal maneuver in rural US areas where these types of non-signaled intersections are common. (Turn lanes are not legally usable for merging, & stopping in an intersection is also not permitted.) There's no reason to assume that the would-be assassin is not simply waving the waiting car to the safety of the median area. Randall's message of caution is still sound, but he accidentally illustrated an intersection diagram that fails to optimally support his case.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

Driving PSA:

Random drivers can’t grant you the right of way as a gift.

[A T-intersection with a major road separated by a concrete median going from top to bottom, and a minor road coming from the left]

[A car is stopped at the end of the minor road]

First car [arrow pointing to car]: You, waiting to turn left

[A second car is stopped in the left turning lane of the right major road, with a third car, a truck hauling cargo, and a fourth car lined up behind it]

Second car [in a speech bubble]: You go ahead! I’m feeling generous.

Second car [arrow pointing to car]: Time traveler pretending to be polite

[In the second lane is a black arrow pointing upwards, with text below it reading 45 MPH, and a fifth car below the text]

Fifth car [arrow pointing to car]: Car that they are waving you into the path of

If someone waves you out, assume that they are an assassin sent from the future to kill you and make it look like an accident.

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