Turn Signals

This is something I noticed almost immediately when I moved out west. I think learning to use your turn signals wasn't a requirement for passing the driver's test or something. And it is extremely frustrating.

Turn signals are not meant to confirm that you, the driver, are turning. (Hopefully you know when you are turning.) It is meant to inform me, the other motorist, of your intentions, on account of me not being psychic.

I couldn't count, in the five or so years that I've lived here, how many times I have been sitting in my car waiting for somebody to drive by so I could turn out, only to see them turn onto a street fifty metres behind me. (I have drawn a diagram because that sentence made no sense and there was no better way to say it - see below.) Or I've pulled up behind someone in those lanes where you can either go straight or turn and I'm stuck behind them waiting at the light because although they intend to turn left they did not feel like informing any other driver around them of their decision.

There are so many other situations where this comes up in intersections and parking lots. I can't think of them all right now and it would take much too long to describe each one. But if you think about it, the turn signal is an ingenious concept and poorly under-utilized here. Its hard to trust other drivers on the road, because its hard to know what someone else is thinking. But this brilliantly simple system of blinking lights clearly and quickly lets other drivers around you know what you're doing, so that they can avoid smashing into you, or wasting their time waiting for you. Turn signals - use them!