You just miss being rammed by a car running a red light. Then you curse that other guy who didn’t signal before abruptly turning left in front of you.

Admit it — don’t you always growl after these near-misses: “Why isn’t there a cop around when you need one?”

But more than a century ago, somebody actually did come up with a novel attempt to do something about drivers who think the rules of the road are for everyone else.

In 1920, the Automobile Club of Southern California, in response to an alarming increase in auto accidents, appointed 200 automobile “vigilantes” to be secretly on the lookout for four-wheel transgressors.

For the next six years, undercover Auto Club volunteers were tasked to observe violations, note a car’s license number and write down on a special card the details o

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