All I want for Christmas is a dashboard camera.

I am not kidding. I wish I was but I am not. I noticed this phenomena awhile ago but tonight, oh tonight made me realize the necessity of a good dashboard camera.

If you are going to insist on coasting rather than braking, then eventually you will get rear-ended. I have been noticing this little trend for awhile. I blame the "Econ" mode, the hypermiling, possibly straight-up ignorance, down right shameful stupidity.

See my friends, there is a definite and distinct difference between a mere tail light and a brake light. In case you were unaware when you press your brake pedal it illuminates the brake light thus allowing the drive behind you to make the appropriate adjustments. I would rather be behind someone riding their brakes than someone who seems to not know what that horizontal pedal is for.

I am not trying to be overly cranky but I went out by Dayton Mall tonight. The drive out was easy. Thank God, Mad River is open. I don't think people know this because getting through Mad River and Alex Bell was a breeze. I expect traffic. I wasn't born yesterday and despite my best efforts, I don't live under a rock. There was traffic, and I know how to maneuver traffic. The problem came on the way home.

I took 675 home. Off at 48, no biggie until I realized I was behind one of those non-brakers. I gave them the benefit of the doubt at first. Maybe I wasn't seeing correctly. To be fair, some modern taillight configurations and light sources play havoc on my eyes. By the time we passed Elsa's though, I started thinking about this dashboard camera.

"Assured Clear Distance" is like the three most evil words in the English language. I started thinking about how if I rear-ended this j-hole then I'd be the one in trouble. Traffic was heavy. I was doing five under most of the time, and partly because I realized that the guy in front of me was incapable of braking properly. His brake lights did work, but the only time he used them was to turn onto Brookmont. C'mon folks, I am no physics genius but even I know that if I am coasting downhill it might not give the appropriate appearance to other drivers that my intention is to slow down and possibly stop.

I have noticed it a lot. Like I said, I think some of the fuel efficiency features on newer cars have made people forget about the world past their shiny dashboard. I don't care if you are getting 99.9 mpg when you do it and I know that you won't either when I slam full force into the back of your vehicle.

So, yeah, dashboard camera so that in the event I do slam into a brake deficient person I can show evidence that they had not indicated that they were stopped. Would it hold up? I don't know. In lieu of that, I am just going to slowly become one of those weirdos who doesn't drive because other people are so unpredictable.

No, no, no that won't actually happen. More than likely, I will just become like my grandma and saying things like," That's a shame, you spent so much money on the car you couldn't afford to add on brake lights." and a lot of other things that aren't postable from a polite society perspective.

If I can't have a dashboard camera, then Santa could you please see to it that all the decelerating but not braking people in the world have a horrible nightmare where they wake up in a cold sweat and vow to ride their brakes 'til it hurts. Nothing to psycholigically damaging, just enough of a jolt with enough physics and Troma effects to make someone rethink their fear of the brake pedal.