Q: When coming up behind someone who is signaling to turn left (into a driveway or at an uncontrolled intersection) and stopped waiting for cross traffic to clear, I turn on my left turn signal as well, even though I won’t be turning. When the other car turns, I turn off my signal and go on my way. My husband thinks this is crazy. I think it helps alert people behind me to what is happening ahead of us. I thought I was taught to do this when I learned to drive. Did I just make this up?
A: This is a first. I’ve had so many conversations about people turning and not using their turn signal. I’ve never had someone ask about using their turn signal and then not turning.
I did my best to find some official driver education that supported your method (just to keep your husband from calling you crazy) but I came up empty-handed. We’ve never met, so I’m in no position to make a psychological diagnosis; I’ll leave that up to your husband. However, people have pushed crazier ideas, like the uncle that told her niece it was okay to drive the wrong way down a one-way street, as long as it was only for one block. (It’s not.) Maybe you also have an uncle who gave you some well-meaning but not great advice.
You won’t find anything in the law that suggests drivers should attempt to communicate the movements of other vehicles. But I can’t find anything that states it’s illegal. Even so, “legal” is not the same as “good idea.” There’s no law against transporting a gallon of house paint without a lid in your passenger seat, but at your first hard brake you’ll regret it.
And while it may be legal, it at the least appears inconsistent with the intent of the law. The law that requires drivers to use turn signals when turning also states that turn signals “shall not be flashed on one side only on a disabled vehicle, . . . nor be flashed on one side only of a parked vehicle . . .” Those scenarios are a bit different from your situation, in that they could mislead another driver to believe that the vehicle with its signal on intends to pull into traffic, but there’s an underlying premise that your signal shouldn’t misrepresent your intention.
The law requires drivers to signal their plans, and we’ve come to expect that a driver’s signals represent their own actions. I appreciate your desire to help other drivers, but your brake lights should be sufficient to let the driver behind you know that something is going on up ahead. By signaling you may also be inadvertently creating a hazard. If the driver behind you sees that the two cars in front of them are turning left, they may decide to pass on the right, which can be legal in some situations. If you then cancel your signal and go straight, you could end up in a collision as the driver pulls back into what they expected to be an open lane, or you may run the other driver off the road.
We have a limited number of tools to communicate with each other on the road. It’s universally agreed that the turn signal means, “I’m planning on turning.” If you give it another meaning, you leave other drivers guessing. Someday our cars may be smart enough to talk to each other and share what’s happening up ahead. Until then, I’d stick with the commonly understood meaning of the turn signal.
Another situation involving signalling or not:
Say you are looking for a particular street. There is a street sign coming up, but you cannot yet read it. It may be the street you are looking for, and it may not. Should you wait until you can read the sign to confirm that it’s your street, and then turn on your signal, or turn on your signal in advance, with the chance that it may not be your sought after street, and then have to cancel your signal? I’d be in favor of the latter, because in that case you’re only annoying the driver behind you, while in the former case, you may not be giving the driver following you enough time to react, resulting in a collision.
I’m a fan of doing your best to let other drivers know your intentions. Like you, I’d rather give the car behind me plenty of notice. The law says that you’re to signal at least 100 feet before turning, and most of the time street signs should be readable at a distance farther than that. In my neighbohood (with 25 mph roads), street signs have 4″ lettering, which has a farthest readable distance of 150 feet and an optimal viewing distance of 40 feet. But lots of factors can reduce readability – weather, fading, tree branches – so there might be times when it’s really hard to know if you’re at the right street prior to the required distance for signaling. When faced with less-than-ideal options, I agree with you that you should do the thing that’s the safest; in this case signaling before you’re 100% sure its your turn rather than waiting until the last second. And I mean “last second” literally – on a 25 mph road you’ll travel almost 40 feet in one second.
Sorry. I’ve had too many close calls of the car behind me not noticing my red “stand still” lights are brake lights….meaning they should stop also while I’m waiting on the car in front of me to turn…..therefore….I put a blinker on ALSO so the car behind me does stop, rather than ram me from the rear while the guy in front of me turns off. After the car in front of me turns…..I look in my mirror to see if the car behind me has made a move and in motion, if not, I turn off my blinker and proceed. I’d rather be safe than sorry.
This is not only really annoying, it’s also wrong. What if it’s a two-lane highway and it’s a passing zone, the car in front of you is turning to the right so you also put your blinker on to the right, there is no oncoming traffic so the 3rd driver starts to pass in the passing lane but then you veer off to the left a little bit too to get around the car quicker and you end up hitting the 3rd car or the 3rd car hits you? Would that be your fault or his/hers? It would be yours because you showed YOUR intent to turn right and then kept going straight/veered left to get around the other car. Not only is this inappropriate but it’s also dangerous. If the vehicle behind you can not see your brake lights at night, or a giant automobile slowing with brake lights already, what makes you think they will see your blinker? That logic isn’t really logical nor is it safe. Blinkers should only be used when the person using the blinker is turning, not 5 cars ahead
You’re a problem, not a solution.
I guess it’s a southern thing. I do it out of courtesy to the ones behind me. Husband tells me I have brake lights for that but I drive a red car and have a fear my brake lights aren’t always seen.