diff --git a/driver-ti.c b/driver-ti.c
index af46769..d827bdf 100644
--- a/driver-ti.c
+++ b/driver-ti.c
@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@
 #include <stdio.h>
 #include <string.h>
 #include <unistd.h>
+#include <sys/types.h>
+#include <sys/stat.h>
 
 /* To be efficient at lookups, we store the byte sequence => keyinfo mapping
  * in a trie. This avoids a slow linear search through a flat list of
@@ -292,6 +294,7 @@ abort_free_ti:
 static int start_driver(TermKey *tk, void *info)
 {
   TermKeyTI *ti = info;
+  struct stat statbuf;
   char *start_string = ti->start_string;
   size_t len;
 
@@ -302,6 +305,13 @@ static int start_driver(TermKey *tk, void *info)
    * We may need to enable that mode
    */
 
+  /* There's no point trying to write() to a pipe */
+  if(fstat(tk->fd, &statbuf) == -1)
+    return 0;
+
+  if(S_ISFIFO(statbuf.st_mode))
+    return 1;
+
   // Can't call putp or tputs because they suck and don't give us fd control
   len = strlen(start_string);
   while(len) {
@@ -317,12 +327,20 @@ static int start_driver(TermKey *tk, void *info)
 static int stop_driver(TermKey *tk, void *info)
 {
   TermKeyTI *ti = info;
+  struct stat statbuf;
   char *stop_string = ti->stop_string;
   size_t len;
 
   if(tk->fd == -1 || !stop_string)
     return 1;
 
+  /* There's no point trying to write() to a pipe */
+  if(fstat(tk->fd, &statbuf) == -1)
+    return 0;
+
+  if(S_ISFIFO(statbuf.st_mode))
+    return 1;
+
   /* The terminfo database will contain keys in application cursor key mode.
    * We may need to enable that mode
    */