Signaling Myself

A profound revelation, perhaps from God Himself, was bestowed upon humble me this morning on the drive to my piano lesson. I may have wept a little when it dawned on me, though that could have been allergies, I'm not 100% certain...

People do not use their turn signal for other people, they use it for themselves.

Praise be for Enlightenment.

I am obsessive about driving. I enjoy it, for reasons many and sundry, and I dare say I'm fairly good at it. You may think otherwise to look at my car, which has a badly cracked windshield, large dents along one side, and a missing rear view mirror on the driver's side. These are all explained by 1) rock chips from the highway that became huge cracks after a sudden swing in temperature, 2) an old woman backing into the side of my car in a parking lot, 3) a drunk driver side-swiping my parked car one late night, and 4) my budget being insufficient to fix any of these things. None are attributable to my personal driving record, which is immaculate, like The Conception.

I also use my blinker, always. I use it to let that 18 wheeler roaring up behind me that I am merging onto the freeway in my under-powered car and I'd rather he didn't squash me. I use it to inform the rich old lady in her BMW that I am passing her because she is driving 15 miles per hour under the speed limit and we all have better things to do than look at her license plate surround that reads "God is my co-pilot". I employ my blinker to signal the Asian woman on her cell phone two lanes over that I am changing lanes and to please not suddenly absentmindedly swerve into the same lane and further damage my car. I'm a communicator, and I try to communicate with the other people on the road, so that they do not kill me.

But I fear I am alone in this..... As I was cut off this morning by a mini bus who signaled at the same moment as changing lanes, before being wedged in between it and a Pontiac Grand Prix that did the same, I realized that they were not signaling for me; they were signaling for themselves. As they clicked the turn signal lever while simultaneously turning the steering wheel, the thought almost certainly went through their heads "Wheeeeeee!! I'm tuuuurning!!! OOooooooohhh!! Ahhhhhh!!!".

As I watched more people on the road I saw further evidence to this fact. As one truck sat, unmoving, at a light, waiting for oncoming traffic to end, his blinker came on suddenly as he turned left onto a side street, while my right blinker had been on for some time as I tried to get into the other lane to pass him, all the while vexed and confused by his inability to move through the intersection, and infuriated by the people behind me who, instead of viewing my blinker and allowing me to get around, leapt at the opportunity to zip past me, perhaps thinking as they did "Something seems to be wrong with that poor man's tail light, it seems to be... blinking.....".

There were also people that turned or changed lanes without ever putting their blinker on at all. This I imagine is because they didn't see any point in using one. They already KNOW they're going to turn, why would they have to take the time to REMIND themselves that they're turning by flicking some cumbersome lever so many long inches from their outstretched hands? Such redundancy is a waste of valuable time, like having three rear view mirrors, and passenger side air bags.

My roommate calls it the "Seattle Signal", the turn and simultaneous signal. He was describing the two near misses he had last weekend from exactly that phenomenon, in which both times his signal was on well ahead of time and the other person's was not. They certainly knew they were about to turn directly in front of him, they'd known for ages now, so why on earth did he not realize their plans?? "Some people are so self-absorbed..." they may have thought as they gleefully spun the wheel.

Perhaps we do need reminders to ourselves of our own plans. I must admit to using post-it notes like they're going out of style. Perhaps I can employ them in my driving as well, to remind me that I'm going to stop soon, or that I am out of gas, or that I am turning into oncoming traffic. I may have something with those first two, but thankfully I don't need to waste my little sheets of yellow sticky paper for the last one; I have a convenient lever placed brilliantly within my reach to act as my reminder. Using this I can save my precious post-its to instead stick to my steering wheel as I turn and scrawl out "Wheeeeeeeeee!!".