C. E. White
Funny, I don't care about signals in any of those situations (and #3 NEVER happens in California: if you signal, you won't ever get in, it's that simple).
I see signal use as important in only three cases.
Pay up or take the bus 2718Getting to work is not "non-essential" travel in my book - I don't care if you live across the street from where...
1) When approaching a four-way stop intersection, if the guy facing me is turning left and I'm going straight ahead. If he fails to signal, I will quite rightfully buttume he's not turning and go ahead, even if he got there slightly before me (and so would have right of way if he had signaled).
2) When I'm waiting to turning right from a side street onto a boulevard, and the guy approaching from my left in the right lane of the boulevard is also turning right. He should be signaling so that I can go.
3) When a badly designed freeway interchange makes it necessary to cross multiple lanes of traffic to reach an exit. In this case people should let you through. (But they should raise holy hell if it turns out that you weren't exiting but just faked it to get in front of them.) On the other hand, you should be going as fast as the other traffic when trying this maneuver. If you try to merge into the fast lane at 45 mph to reach a left exit, you don't deserve to be let in and you won't be.
