Urban legend or fact? (long WOB, sorry), fulda tires & fog lights

["Andrew D.Mendez" <AMENDEZ@xxxxxxx>]

I promise this is my last urban legend post. FWIW,
I did a Westlaw search & located 13 real, major
newspaper articles about the flashing
headlight/gang initiation thing. Cities included
LA, Sacramento, Chicago, Harrisburg, Dallas, Ft.
Worth and others.  11 said it was BS UL. 2 (same
paper I think) said it *may* have happened in
Memphis, but also noted that a city anti-gang task
force leader admitted his office made this up to
draw attention to the gang problem, then
subsequently reversed his position & said it was
really true. California DofJ officials were quoted
as saying it never happended in Cal. If you
insist, I'll send you cite list & you can look up
the articles in your library. For a fun surfing
experience, point your browser to
www.urbanlegend.com & then click on
www.urbanlegends.com. (trust me). Suffice it to
say the UL archive has a *folder*, not just a
file, on the "lights out" gang story. As for the
deaf/gang sign thing, the origin of that is (1)
deaf guy driving car is shot by gang member (2)
cop speculates, w/o a shred of evidence, it was
because mistook ASL for gang sign (3) media hypes
this & reports it as true b/c it sounds
compelling, while cop had no more idea what
happened than I do (i.e, deaf guy may have cut
gang member off, failed to yield ROW, or
complained that gang member was playing music
really loud [you can *feel* the bass]). Now,
flatfoot hears this 3d hand & then everytime a
deaf person is shot by a young thug for any/no
reason, authoritatively declares, "yup, seen this
before in my time on the beat, probably b/c
mistook gang sign". Contrary to what 3 recent
posts suggested, I never said violent, moronic
gangs don't exist and/or kill people essentially
at random. I have had a couple of instances where
ne'er-do-wells clearly up to no good were driving
next to me making gang signs & crap on deserted
roads late at night. (Once a group of, we'll say
Norwegians, who looked like gang bangers were
screaming & making threatening gestures at me from
a diplapidated E30 and I outmaneuvered them in my
rental Grand Am - truth is sometimes stranger than
fiction). I won't argue w/ anyone anymore about
this; as the poster on Mulder's wall says "I WANT
TO BELIEVE."

PS thanks to all who replied about foglight
covers. I am apparently the only one who doesn't 
have these things yet; they're in the mail. 

PPS I went to high school for a year in Fulda,
FRG, home of Fulda tires. I've never seen these
things in US & think they're below Conti in German
pecking order; see 'em mostly on dump trucks &
econocars in the Fatherland. 

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