23 August 2005

Driving #2: Indicating

Annoyingly, Dictionary.com doesn't provide the necessary ammunition for the definition of indicate but I'll include anyway.

Indicators, Turn Signals, whatever you want to call them, are on cars for a reason. You pay for them so you might as well use them. I believe that not using them is an offence in the States. But sleeping with your sister isn't. Well, in Alabama anyway1.

The point of indicators is to indicate your next manouevre in advance of that manouevre. I don't need you to tell me what manouevre you are making. I have eyes. I want to know what you're going to do, not what you are doing. When we're doing 70 on the motorway and you switch lanes in front of me, indicating halfway through merely enforces my opinion of you as a moron.

Again the UK Highway Code has various rules about this sort of thing.

In town, its different but no less annoying. If you're sat in a queue and someone wants to be let out, but they aren't indicating, they give you a look which means "Please let me out" to which you respond with a look that means "I would, but I haven't a fucking clue where you want to go! So No. Read the Highway Code while you're waiting!"2.

Roundabouts (or "keepleftis" in Swahili) are a good invention for getting several roads joined together without undue lights and waiting. However, people's perception of the rules governing the use of roundabouts is as varied as the nature of moron who abuse them. Some people dispense with indicating full stop, which means that no-one else can join without the distinct possibility of getting a car in the lap, thereby turning a great invention into a circular scrapyard.

So, a plea. We're all trying to get home as quickly as possible, with as much of our hair and cars intact as possible. Pity the other poor souls sharing the road to hell and keep them informed. Use your indicators. Or.....I'll bitch and whine at my inability to do anything about it.

1 No offence, Alabama. I reached for a sterotype and you were closest.
2 I can convey a lot in a look.

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