It was the JERK in Front of Me! Really!

August 15, 2001 - Earlier this spring, Farrell Roberts had an unusual idea. He picked up a power inverter, plugged it into his cigarette lighter, and then hooked up his VCR and set it on the front seat in a cloth bag so that passing cars would not recognize it. Then he set up the XCam2 at prime locations in his car to get a look at all the motorists on the road. As a result of his ingenuity, he was able to capture video that made driving that much more fun. Just people in their cars, driving along, paying attention to very little, if anything at all.

Peter Prince read that article, and thought he might try that too. "I travel from Rochester to Buffalo, New York about three times a week on the NYS Thruway," Peter said, and "there has always been some ’jerk’ that either pulled out in front of me traveling at a slower speed, cut me off as I was trying to pass, sped up so that I couldn’t pass, followed too closely or tried to ’bully’ me into another lane."

That’s a lot to have to contend with on any trip, and as just about everyone within eyeshot of this article knows, it happens all too often. Whether the other driver is conscious of it or not, it happens, making those freeways all too frustrating to drive. So after reading that article, Peter set up his own system. "I set up the X10 Security Camera, attached it to my portable Sony 8mm recorder, directed it out the front of the windshield and headed off to Buffalo."

With the recorder running, during the entire journey, Peter says that not one "jerk" appeared. Peter found it interesting, but decided to simply enjoy the ride, which lulled him into a false sense of security. "Upon exiting the toll booth in Buffalo, some ’jerk’ in the booth to the left of mine made a right turn directly in front of me." Peter slammed on the brakes just missing the car, but the three vehicles behind him weren’t so lucky. The vehicle directly behind Peter slammed on its brakes just barely avoiding rear-ending Peter, but three other vehicles behind the first vehicle slammed into him and each other, creating a four-car pileup.

Fortunately, Peter had the whole incident on tape. "I turned the tape over to the police," Peter said, "suggesting this vehicle was responsible for the accident." Peter was more than a mere witness; he had proof, that most important element in any dispute regarding guilt and innocence over the blame of an automobile accident. Needless to say, shortly thereafter Peter was informed, "the driver of the vehicle in question was ticketed for his actions, and charged with other crimes on top of that."

After that experience, Peter said, "I considered it interesting and thought I would share it with you." And X10 thought it was incredibly interesting, and thought we would share it with our readers. Peter was able to actually right a wrong done, thanks to the help of the XCam2. Wouldn’t it be nice if all traffic disputes were that easily resolved?

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