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Far too many drivers think their car’s blinkers are just there to look pretty, providing bright orange highlights to break up the frontal appearance. Not so, guys and gals, your car’s blinkers are your number one method of communication with those whom you are sharing the road.
Get into the habit of thinking before you hit that blinker lever and you will make life just that little bit safer for everyone – but especially for yourself, and isn’t that a good thing?
Only about five per cent of drivers signal before changing lanes. That sad fact recently became obvious when I did a survey of other vehicles during one of the seemingly interminable bus trips that are a fact of life for we motoring journalists.
My one-man, bus-seat research campaign, shows that about ninety five drivers out of a hundred don’t signal their intentions. The silly thing is that virtually every driver does use their car’s blinkers, it’s just that they do so during the lane change manoeuvre, not before it.
Instead of saying, “I’m about to change lanes” the signal is “Look at me, I’m part way through changing lanes’. The first thing other drivers see is the car in front of them altering its direction, then its blinkers coming on. In other words the signal becomes all but irrelevant.
Having opened with that rave I must say that a couple of times lately I’ve come across idiots who accelerate to close a gap when I’ve signalled that I needed to change lanes. Then abused me afterwards for cutting in front of them – just what goes through their tiny minds?
Just as dangerous are the people who put on their car’s brakes before the blinkers when they are planning to turn off the road. The driver behind, who may have been following them uneventfully for many kilometres, suddenly sees brake lights go on for no apparent reason. Then several seconds later the blinker comes on.
By then it’s too late, because the following driver’s attention has been distracted by the unexpected appearance of brakes lights. Most of the time that doesn’t matter overmuch, but there are occasions when that distraction may have pulled the driver’s attention away from something else of vital importance.
It will now seem though I’m contradicting myself: I can’t understand why many drivers use the blinkers when there isn’t another car in sight. Many a time I’ve sat in a passenger seat late at night when there’s no traffic about and watched the driver use the blinkers to change lanes (usually too late, but let’s not get back onto that again).
Though I would never question them out loud, I feel the drivers would probably say that it’s best to use the blinkers automatically without having to think about it. I beg to disagree, it’s best to keep your mind on all the details of driving all the time, which includes being aware of other vehicles in the same area as your car. Naturally, if you’re unsure about the latter it’s smart to use the blinkers just in case.
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