If there’s one thing for which Winnipeg drivers are
notorious, it’s failure to signal, and I fail to understand why it’s such a
problem while I fail to extend understanding.
Signaling a turn, signaling a lane change – not only are these legal
requirements, they’re just good common sense.
If the surrounding traffic - pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers alike - is
aware of your intentions, we’re all going to get along that much more safely.
So why don’t some drivers signal? I’ve heard the excuses:
“There’s no one around.”
Um, if I just saw you fail to signal (and very likely video recorded you
doing so), there’s SOMEONE around. I
think in this instance drivers are referring to other vehicles, but vehicles
are not the only users of the road.
Pedestrians and cyclists need to know which way drivers are going, too,
not just other drivers.
“If I signal, the other cars speed up so I can’t change lanes.” I have two responses to that, and the first
is “Good.” Failure to plan on your part
is not necessarily an emergency on the part of everyone else. If you signal and can’t change lanes, SLOW
DOWN AND WAIT YOUR TURN. It’s in the
manual: “Move into another lane only when safe” (MPIC, Driver’s Handbook, (2015), p.38, retrieved from http://www.mpi.mb.ca/en/pdfs/completehandbook.pdf). The other response is: “WHAAAT?” So, instead of signaling your intention and
perhaps waiting your turn you’d rather selfishly endanger everyone else on the
road? That's called “cutting someone off”
and I GUARANTEE you don’t like it when it happens to you.
“They can tell which way I’m going by the direction the car is going.” Seriously?!
I call this “expectant telepathy”, assuming everyone else on the road can
read your mind from the way you drive your car.
Newsflash: if you think the rest of us can mystically ascertain your
intentions without any signals from you, your mind is already too tiny to read in
the first place.
“I don’t need to.” Um,
yes. Yes, you do. It’s the law: Manitoba
Highway Traffic Act, Section 125, Subsections 1 & 2 (retrieved from https://web2.gov.mb.ca/laws/statutes/ccsm/h060e.php).
I have great deal of frustration surrounding this issue,
summed up quite nicely by the following graphic:
Cue today’s idiot. A
guy in a red convertible turned without signaling and swore at me when I called
him on it. I tried to chase him down to ask him why . . .
If had caught him, I would have asked the question I ask all
scofflaws: “So, in 50 words or less, why don’t the rules of the road apply to
you?” Ultimately, it wouldn’t have
mattered what answer he gave – he would have been wrong.
