The USS Quad Damage

I've always felt bad for brakes that have to do too much. Ever since the crummy brakes on my tiny bike had to pull up the bike with my fat arse on it, I've always been somewhat trepiditious whenever I've had to slam the brakes on any vehicle.

As one knows, driving to work is a pain in the arse. While I'm generally understanding of small cars, the braking issue is one which, although I understand, I have difficulty being happy with. My '91 (red) camry was somewhat big compared to the tiny cars everpresent in city driving. I felt that the '96 (green) camry was positively cumbersome. The Commodore is bigger still.

Due to the benefit of the (lack of) momentum that small cars like the Toyota echo share, they don't have to brake as early, or as hard, to stop quickly. Unfortunately, if I'm sitting behind one, they can be speeding along one second, then coming to a complete halt the next. What makes things worse is that brake lights don't really differentiate between "slowing down just to be at the same speed as the rest of traffic" (something which small cars do a lot), or coming to a complete stop, so, effectively, I don't know when to ignore the brake lights.

This causes me to brake quite heavily, at times, despite my conservative (X-ism) driving style (as opposed to my V-ism fighting style). I cry a little every time.