Blink June 10, 2009
Posted by indigobunting in Uncategorized.trackback
Y’know how you’re driving down the road and you get behind someone who has no clue the turn signal was left on and it drives you almost insane and nine times out of ten it turns out to be some elderly person you’re not so sure should be driving anyway? Reader, I’m afraid I’m becoming that person.
About twice a week I make a 22-mile trek to a town south of here to do some business. I drive down Route 153 to River Road, make a right onto it, and take it to Route 30, where I make another right to head south. Thing is, that second right isn’t really a hard enough right to automatically turn off the signal. And lately, more than once, a couple miles down the road I’ve noticed that my signal is still blinking.
Aaaargh!
In my defense, it may not be my creeping senility. Rather, I suspect this happens because I am rocking out so hard that I simply do not hear the turn signal that has failed to switch off. As I make that right, I am likely belting out how I don’t give a damn about my bad reputation or how I want to be sedated or how perhaps it’s in your best interest to get off of my cloud.
So yes, friends, maybe I am becoming that old lady who leaves her freakin’ turn signal on. But rest assured: I’m also a badass.
Route 153 
The real issue here is an inappropriately calibrated signal turner-offer. You have no culpability other than that of a car owner who did not sufficiently test all vehicle systems prior to purchase.
Of course you are!
As long as you don’t have a badass. And I hope you’re dressing the part. (Of the badass, not the old lady. Although I’m trying to think of what a badass old lady would wear. A muscle shirt with ruffles at the neck?)
Was that YOU with the blinking light all the way down River Road? (Just kidding.)
I wish I had that excuse, but all I listen to is NPR and I don’t want to blame Kojo or Diane or Scott, so I’ll admit to my senility here and now.
Scott should have linked to http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3874941
Yeah, but you’re a lovely badass!
You don’t need to turn on your right blinker at that Y-type intersection — the angle of your car conveys your intention perfectly. (After all, you’re not turning, you’re essentially going straight.) And regarding that
intersection, don’t you think a Yield sign there would be much better/safer than the Stop? How can we petition for that?
Hello everyone! I’m on the road and am only checking in…thanks for the comments. Helen, I need to figure out how to dress. Ed, sometimes I don’t signal, but sometimes it’s simply habit. And you’re right, a yield sign might work…but it’s kind of a dangerous intersection (least dangerous from that direction), so I bet it would be a tough fight to change it.
I’m voting for badass. I frequently miss things because the windows are open and the music is too loud. Loud enough to make the child wince. I miss the turns, the detour signs, the pedestrians in a flurry to move out of the way, the bridge-out signs.
Sometimes I miss my turn because I’m looking for my glasses.
Lucky you are American and not Australian or you would be a badarse, which isn’t quite so rock and roll: me too with the indicator, for the same reason: I am completely senile. Always have been.
My turn signal will blink quietly for a good long while. Then, suddenly, it starts screaming at me, a loud BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! It’s always startles me greatly, to the extent that more than once I have suddenly veered toward the median or toward a car in another lane before I came to my senses.
I’d rather have Stephen Fry’s dulcet, P.G. Wodehouse Jeevesian tones saying, “I’m so sorry to disturb you, sir, but it appears you have neglected to reset your turn signal,” just like his wonderful clocks.
Craig – Those clocks are marvelous! Although, I must say that the ‘sleep exercise’ was as disturbing as it was relaxing – “Now it is time for Sir to sleep…”. **shiver**
I wonder if Fry could get a contract with the car manufacturers to do voice work on the various systems? I bet there would be a market.
Can you imagine him as the voice on turn-by-turn GPS automobile navigation? “If Sir would turn right at the next light, I’d be ever so grateful!”
Although Ed technically beat me to it, I feel the need to say that if you were truly a badass, there would be no turn signal usage there at all.
I can count on one hand the number of times a car has actually crept up behind me at that spot in the 4 years I have lived here.
Besides, the risk of someone having to guess (assume) that you are turning right is WAY better than the risk of being assumed an old lady.
Ironically, while the RIGHT turn signal is arguably unecessary on the trip out, the LEFT turn signal is vitally important on the return trip. However, the angle of the road still comes into play. Just last week I found myself more than halfway down River Road (toward home) before realizing MY left turn signal was still on. NOW who’s an old lady?!?!
You are right, turn signal WAY more important going home. And I have been trying to perfect the art of not signaling there—if there is no one behind me, which there usually isn’t. But sometimes there is. Truly.
It is so hard to be a badass.