In the process of
removing the courtesy lights
in the Prius doors a while back and being
mildly concerned about maintaining night-time visibility, I had decided to
spiff up the car with bits of retro-reflective tape along the door edges to
yield an even better indication of an open(ing) door to a driver behind at
night than the lights could ever hope to. I still believe that all car
manufacturers should do something similar at the factory -- passive
retroreflector tape is a very cheap and effective way of doing that which
lasts quite a while, and more permanent methods could probably be designed
as well. Many public safety and commercial vehicles already receive similar
treatment before being placed into service. My own efforts quickly led to
getting a little carried away with the whole night visibility thing even
back then, as shown at the end of that other page. The car ran around
like that for a couple of years.
It wasn't enough. With the ever-increasing neanderthal stupidity on the roads these days and so many people completely not paying attention to their driving, it was becoming clear that the "conspicuity effort" needed another step up. While idly browsing around various safety-product sites an idea began forming, and to help visualize some aesthetics a quick-n-dirty "artist's conception" photochop was done based on an old picture from the "naked Prius" page.
This isn't a real photo and the faked-in stripe is a bit too wide, but it was clear that two-inch retroreflective "bumblebee tape" would fit perfectly along the flat body crease just under the windows. I had to consider this carefully, as it would likely be a permament change. The better "engineer grade" embedded-glass-bead variety of this stuff is very difficult to remove, and would probably take a lot of paint with it if attempted. But I liked the look already, and went ahead to find a local supplier for National Marker's RHS2BY striped tape. The good stuff ain't cheap -- over a buck a foot, and I'd wind up needing about 28 feet of it all told. Conveniently, it comes in 30-foot rolls. |
Edges were cut along the tape masks, letting the masking tape cushion the knife point away from the body paint. |
So why would *anyone* want to tailgate something like this? I cannot fathom that, but they do it anyway. That's gotta be it -- they're all Red Lectroids and think that I'm an escape pod headed back to New Jersey. For such numbnuts there's the yuppie button, which may or may not actually work to get rid of them. |