Tag: traffic laws

Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts

Warning: short rant ahead.

I don’t know if laws, customs, or behaviors are changing when it comes to driving in Ashland, Oregon. I don’t think it’s a change law. Although I sometimes zone out of what’s going on locally, I believe I would have heard about a law changing how turn signals are used.

Note: turn signals are also called blinkers. More formerly, they’re called direction indicator lights.

See, I’ve noticed a new development here. Drivers stop. As you stop behind them and wonder why they’re stopped, they start to turn and then put on their turn signal.

WTF? I thought the idea behind turn signals was to communicate with other drivers and notify them of their intention to turn. Doing so reduces the chances of accidents and injuries. Already enough of that potential when people are driving around in these powerful metal machines.

I see it in all situations, including changing lanes and at traffic lights. Red light. Stopped. Green light. They move up, begin the turn, and then put on the signal. Meanwhile, the driver they faced was starting to go. Now they hesitate because what the other drive is doing is different from what they’re communicated. The communication confusion spills down the line.

Was the driver who didn’t use their turn signal really just changing their mind? Could happen. Sure. But it’s happening so often now, I’m dubious. And they consistently begin moving into the turn first, and then put on the signal. That strikes me as premeditated.

It happened to me this morning. A large late model Ford pickup truck was stopped in the lane ahead of me. As I closed on him, I could see that no one was in front of them.

Were they broken down? Lost or confused?

Maybe. Because after the traffic coming toward them thinned, the began turning left and then put on their signal.

Yes, they put on their signal after they started turning, after they’d been stopped for about twenty seconds.

It didn’t make sense. For the record, the driver looked white, and a male — I say that because of the beard — in their late twenties to early thirties.

I’m not the only person complaining about the lack of signals. A 2019 NYTimes article explored the same sort of problem.

The NYT article asks, “So what’s the problem here? Why don’t many drivers take this simple safety precaution? When asked about their bad habits in a national study, their explanations seemed confounding.

“The study by Response Insurance of Meriden, Conn., found that 42 percent of drivers claimed they didn’t have enough time to signal before turning. Nearly a quarter of drivers blamed laziness, while 17 percent said they skipped signaling because they were apt to forget to cancel the blinkers. Worth noting: Men admitted that they were more likely, by 62 percent to 53 percent, to change lanes without signaling.”

Laziness. Really? Turning on that signal is that challenging to their strength, attention, and energy?

My situation is a little different. Drivers here ARE turning their signal on, but not until they actually start turning.

I don’t understand what’s going on in their head. It’s such a simple thing. As the NYT article notes, “Is it that some drivers just don’t care about the other guy? If that’s the case, consider this: There is evidence that the act of signaling provides a cognitive benefit to the driver.

“When you turn on the turn signal, you’re turning on your brain,” said Chris Kaufmann, a driving school instructor who specializes in teaching people who drive V.I.P.s.”

My impression is that drivers not using signals until they’re in the turn unaware of the law or they’re not mentally involved in their driving. Maybe they’re on the phone, listening to the radio, or chatting to another in the car.

Driving a car is part of a system. When some drivers don’t follow the system’s rules, it starts breaking down. Maybe it’s anal of me, but that’s how I see it.

Probably just me.

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

Here we go. Thursday ends in a y, so it must be time for me to rant.

Subject: Are more people running red lights?

It seemed like that was rare for me to witness anywhere outside of Japan, which was over thirty years ago. I’d see one sometimes in the Bay area, especially in San Jose.

Now, here in little Ashland, I typically witness two cars or more a day running red lights. I rarely if ever saw them before the COVID era began. Now they’re increasing. While some are people turning left across traffic and waiting for an opening that doesn’t come until the light changes, the huge percentage are going straight, speeding up to hurtle through an intersection before the light goes red.

They often don’t make it. People get the green light and begin to go and then, here comes the red light runner, forcing everyone with the green light and right of way to slam on their brakes. I often witness very close calls between vehicles, or the speeding vehicle and cyclists or passengers.

It reminds me of the one crash I saw when someone ran the redlight.

This was around 1997. We were living in Mountain View, California, and had decided to go to the Mall of America in Milpitas. Stopped at a traffic light, I realized I needed to be in the lane to the right. Only one car inhabited it, so I thought I’d delay until they went and then shift over.

The light changed. The car in the next lane started off. I followed.

Suddenly, here comes a Cadillac sedan. Running the light from my left, they slammed into the driver’s side of the first car.

That could’ve easily been me.

We went right, around the block, coming back to check on the cars. Took a few minutes and by the time we arrived, the cops were there and the people from the crash were in a parking lot. But my wife and I stopped anyway, to share what we witnessed, and to check on the people.

As we approached, we heard the young female driver whose car was hit say with heavy sobbing, “I thought the light had changed.” On the parking lot’s other side, an old man paced while an elderly woman fumed beside him, arms crossed, lips tight.

I immediately said to the young driver, “It had changed. I was there. It was green when you went.”

The cops looked at me and asked who I was. I explained it all. My wife and I verified, the light was absolutely green when the woman went forward.

I heard the fuming woman say, “You’re always doing this. I knew this was going to happen.” As I looked her way, she finished to the old man, “You’re lucky you haven’t killed someone yet, but you will, if you don’t change.”

Watching these people taking greater and greater risk, I often now think the same thing which that woman said that day.

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

A car ran the red traffic light. He noted it without surprise. What was once extremely rare was now witnessed daily. Maybe he was paying more attention now. Or maybe there’s a general trend of greater lawlessness expanding, a growing sense among people that the law doesn’t apply to them.

Or maybe there were just more bad drivers.

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