The GreatBlinker Blackout

I don’t know where it is.

A classic. A cornerstone. A statement that requires the driver to have located the gas pedal, the brake, the steering wheel, the infotainment system, the seat heater controls, the lumbar support dial, and the button that makes the mirrors fold in, but somehow never crossed paths with the lever sticking out of the steering column that has been in the same spot on every car since approximately 1956. Perhaps it is very shy. Perhaps it hides. Perhaps it is simply waiting, patiently, hopefully, for the day you finally look to your left.

Are you supposed to?

Asked with genuine, innocent curiosity. Not rhetorically. Not sarcastically. Actually wondering, apparently for the first time in their entire driving career, whether signaling one’s intentions to other motorists might be expected, encouraged, or — here’s the twist — legally mandated in all fifty states, every Canadian province, and essentially every country with roads. The driver’s education materials covered this. At some length. With diagrams. You were presumably in the room.

I’m never sure if left is down and right is up — or the other way around.

A philosophical quandary with a simple solution: try one. Observe the result. Adjust if wrong. The whole process, including error and correction, takes under two seconds. Instead, the driver has spent years in a kind of existential lever-related paralysis, unwilling to commit, unwilling to guess, unwilling to risk the mild social embarrassment of briefly signaling in the wrong direction on their way to not signaling at all. The other drivers, for the record, would have forgiven the wrong blinker immediately. They are getting nothing.

I’m trying to make other drivers guess which way I’m going.

Now we arrive at the strategic excuse — the driver who has reframed their indifference as a form of gameplay. A competitive sport. A social experiment. Roads are, for this individual, an arena of mystery and suspense, and they are the auteur. Other drivers are not, in fact, trying to guess. They are trying to merge safely onto an interstate and get home in time for dinner. But points for creativity. We appreciate the lore-building. We remain, however, in the ditch.

I was listening to a podcast.

The podcast, presumably, was very good. It may have been discussing the importance of communication. It may have been a true crime episode in which a failure to signal played a pivotal narrative role. The host almost certainly did not say “and now, reach toward your steering column.” The ears were occupied. The arm was available. The arm did not receive the memo. This excuse has a certain honesty to it, which we respect, even as we note that the podcast will still be there after you turn.

I’m late for work.

The temporal defense. The driver has determined, through some private calculus, that activating a turn signal would cost more time than it saves, despite the fact that the signal takes 0.3 seconds and the insurance claim they are about to file will cost approximately eleven business days. Being late for work is acknowledged as a real and stressful phenomenon. It does not, however, suspend traffic law, bend the geometry of intersections, or make other cars smaller. It simply means you are late for work and also about to be later.

Nobody else uses it, so why should I?

The tragedy of the commons, applied to a blinking orange light. A feedback loop so elegant it almost deserves respect: nobody signals because nobody signals, and nobody signals because nobody signals. The driver has noticed, correctly, that signaling rates on certain roads have dropped to what scientists estimate is approximately “not great.” They have drawn the wrong lesson. The correct lesson is not “join the chaos” but rather “be the change you wish to see in the intersection,” a sentiment that Gandhi almost certainly would have endorsed had he driven.

My signal wasn’t working, so I’ve given up on it entirely.

The broken-blinker defense, offered by someone whose blinker stopped working in the spring of 2019 and who has since conducted their spatial negotiations with the world via sheer momentum and unexplained gestures. The repair, we are told, is “on the list.” The list, we are told, is “somewhere.” In the meantime, other drivers have been expected to intuit the vehicle’s intentions telepathically, which is not a feature that has shipped on any human being yet, though we are told it’s on the roadmap.

I didn’t want to give away my plans too early.

The tactical driver. The chess player of the commute. This individual has determined that announcing a turn 100 feet in advance is somehow a vulnerability — that other motorists, upon seeing a left turn signal, will mount some kind of response, take countermeasures, alert the authorities. In reality, the other drivers are going to slow down, yield appropriately, and return to thinking about lunch. There is no adversary here. There is only a left turn onto Elm Street. You may signal. It is safe.

I signal after I’ve already started turning — that counts, right?

It does not count. We’re sorry. The signal is a communication device designed to inform other drivers of your upcoming intention, not a personal diary entry written after the fact. Signaling mid-turn is the automotive equivalent of sending an email explaining you’re about to reply to the email you just replied to. The information has arrived too late to be useful. Other drivers are already braking. Or swerving. Or composing their thoughts for later use in a humor article.

I was thinking about something else.

The most honest excuse of all, offered without elaboration or apology, sometimes while still thinking about the thing. It is not a defense so much as an accurate field report from a human brain under cognitive load. We are not unsympathetic. The brain is busy. Grocery lists accumulate. Anxieties percolate. Song lyrics surface unbidden. All of this is acknowledged. We would simply note that driving is, technically, also happening, and that it involves a two-ton metal object moving at speed through shared public space. Just a thought. From the curb.

I never know which way I’m going.

A confession so pure it nearly transcends the genre. The driver has arrived at an intersection — a place specifically designed for the purpose of going somewhere — and is experiencing a kind of existential suspension, a fork in the road of both asphalt and selfhood. They did not plan the route. They did not consult a map. They are, in some profound sense, adrift. And so they merge into traffic without signaling, not out of malice, not out of indifference, but because the signal would itself require a decision, and decisions are precisely what is unavailable right now. In fairness, this is the one excuse that is internally consistent: you cannot signal a turn you have not yet chosen. We suggest, respectfully, pulling into a parking lot to have a little think.