Didn’t Signal

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 . . . 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb5mCSmNM5w

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.

This Idiot is a Motorist

My first blog entry with a video featured cyclists, and the second pedestrians.  Since then I have logged hundred of kilometres on my bicycle, most of those rides captured on video.  Upon review, it would seem that my main concern with Winnipeg drivers is their apparent and total disregard for using turn signals.

I`ll post a clip montage on that topic another time.

Today`s entry is reserved for one special driver I encountered last summer.  She . . . she just . . . well, see for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwFmYaUoT_4

What are the options here?  Clearly, she found herself somewhere she didn't want to be, but instead of going with the flow of traffic and looping around, she deliberately flouted the rules of the road.  Did she think they didn't apply to her?  That it would be all right "just this once"?  That apologizing would make everything okay?

Fortunately, the rest of us on the road that morning were driving defensively, and no one was hurt.

This time.