Turn Signals and Opinions

Everyone has them.

Turn signals and opinions are pretty similar. That bit of information occurred to me on my drive to work this morning.

Some older white guy in a high end cross-over SUV was trying to force his way into the left lane. He had his signal on, but no one was letting him in. He was FURIOUS. Waving his hands all over the place, screaming at other drivers. It was bumper to bumper traffic and no one was going anywhere fast, but he was adamant someone needed to let him into the left lane.

Honestly, I laughed at him. There was no real reason for anyone to let him in other than courtesy. In reality, he was driving like an asshole and hadn’t earned the courtesy he was demanding. He was swerving, trying to force his way into the lane when there wasn’t any room, yelling and pointing. I think the Honda in front of me was getting some enjoyment out of pissing this guy off. I kept staring at his flashing turn signal, waiting for him to succumb to life in the right lane and turn it off.

That’s when the similarity hit me. Turn signals are like opinions.

It doesn’t matter if you’re going left or right, everyone uses them to let people know.

You can just as easily piss someone off by using them as not.

You can use them all you want, but no one really has to honor them if they don’t want to.

If no one is around to see them, it doesn’t really matter if you use them at all.

If you leave them flashing too long, people think you are really young, really old, or just an idiot.

Experienced drivers use them when they need to. They know when they are necessary and when they aren’t.

Sometimes, people use them purely out of habit and not because anyone around them needs to know.

They can either identify you as an asshole or keep you from being called one.

As you can tell, my mind wandered while I was in traffic watching the old guy trying to force his way into the left lane. As traffic ebbed and flowed, he was either three cars in front of me or three cars behind. Eventually, I had to get into the right lane myself to reach my exit. There he was, sitting in my blind spot, turn signal still flashing. It seemed like everyone had decided that guy didn’t need to be in the left lane as much has though he did. I knew he wasn’t going to let me in, so I slowed down and gave him a gap in front of me to finally get into the right lane.

What did I get for my effort? The finger. He stuck it out the window and flipped me off after I let him into the left lane.

At that moment, I had a second epiphany…no matter if someone is using their signal or not, or whatever their opinion is on a particular topic…sometimes people are just assholes.

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