Diatribe: Signal your intentions when driving

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It’s been awhile since I did a rant against people who refuse to use turn signals. It’s not that I’ve lessened my hatred and disgust toward them. It’s just that I wanted to give my last few diatribes some time to see if the idea of using a device that’s free with the purchase of a vehicle – and the use of which is mandated by law – has caught on.

Truth be told, I’ve always been thought of as a balloon-headed dreamer and once again that description has been validated.

It may seem impossible, but I think the situation has become more prevalent in the past year or so. I’ll be driving along in the right-hand lane and all of a sudden the vehicle in front of me will slow down to a crawl and suddenly turn right. Did I realize this was going to happen? How the could I? I’m not a mind reader and this dummy didn’t put on his signal. By the time I realized it, my car had snuck up on his like two dogs walking in a field.

Conversely, what good does it do to ride in the left lane? Even though we have a fighting chance in Michigan because there are designated turn lanes, oftentimes someone will slow down and eventually get into the middle lane in order to turn. Meantime, you’ve slowed down to almost a crawl and everybody in the right-hand lane seems to be flying along without a care in the world.

I can’t wish enough bad things to happen to those who refuse to use their turn signals.

I’m equally irked with local law officers for not enforcing turn signal laws. As I’ve often said, it’s bush league to lie in wait to give someone a ticket for doing 3.7345 miles over the speed limit when police could give failure-to-signal tickets all day long and bring a lot of revenue into their towns. It’s a win-win for everybody except the fool who doesn’t use his signals.

I’ll give you a little tour through my brain’s daily function during a drive. I’m zooming along a local four-lane highway and the guy in front of me proceeds to jam on his brakes. As he does so he makes a right-hand turn into a shopping mall. No indication, no signal, no nothing. I almost hit him and the two or three cars following me have to stop equally as quick because they had no prior warning that someone was going to turn. After this guy makes his turn and has generally received a horn blast from me out of frustration, I lower my blood pressure by envisioning him tied up with acid-dipped handcuffs, beaten within an inch of his life with a strand of concertina wire and then tied to a railroad track to await the 5:10 express from Yuma.

There is no excuse for failure to signal a turn. If your turn signals are inoperative, then stick your arm out the window and state your intentions. You say your windows won’t roll down? Then break them and stick your arm out the shattered glass and show me which way you’re going to go. Do something!

If police officers ever do start stopping people for failure to signal, they should give the person a choice: Get a $15,327.31 ticket for each offense or donate one toe to the local college of podiatry. If the person still is a habitual offender after losing all 10 toes, then the next step is to donate his fingers and thumbs to the local school of manicuring.

Finally, to all of you who think I’m being harsh, I have my own signal for you. You can guess what it is.

Until next time, have a nice day.

Al Vinikour is a Midwest-based freelance auto writer. Proving a mind is a “terrible thing to use” he sometimes sits in traffic and ponders about things — generally auto-related — that make him mad. Believing the “pen is mightier than the sword” (and generally results in a whole lot less jail time), he vents his anger through a word processor and produces the Driver’s Side Diatribe column. E-mail him at vinikour@comcast.net.