Turn Signal

Recently my car broke down, as in completely stopped running, on the interstate when I was driving alone and 106 miles from home. Two weeks after that I was driving home from making groceries and experienced a blow-out on a rear tire. Both nerve-racking driving experiences involving waiting for a wrecker, but each trumped by my most recent white knuckle ride.

My car has a short in the electrical system that controls the blinkers. This means that sometimes the blinkers work, sometimes they don’t. I don’t really stress about whether or not the blinkers are working because the majority of the time I am driving around the small town I live in and I assume other drivers recognize my car and know where I am going.

Monday evening I was in driving through downtown Birmingham in rush-hour traffic when the blinkers quit working. I wasn’t sure of where I was going so I was making a lot of erratic last minute lane changes. In the interest of safety I decided to go old school with the turn signals and put the window down and stuck my arm straight out to signal left turn or out and up to signal right turn.

After pissing off a lot of my fellow drivers and receiving a few rude hand signals of theirs, it dawned on me that traffic hand signals may be lost knowledge.