Q&A - Change Lanes Without Signal

A couple of comments, here.

So, essentially what you have to do is signal before you move from one lane to another. The idea is to tell others what you are going to do, give them enough time to see and understand, then do it if it is safe to move.

That's it, in a nutshell. Whether it be lane changes or turns at intersections, the maneuver you're in the act of performing is obvious to anybody with eyes in their head. Signals should always be on soon enough to indicate your intentions, not your actions - which are obvious, already.

My suggestion is that 4 seconds of signalling is reasonable before you move and I base this recommendation on my experience with people's perception and reaction times learned from my training as a collision analyst. Very few drivers do this.

Signalling one's intention to change lanes for 4 seconds in advance of the maneuver is an ideal concept for the reasons noted. But it's interesting to note the 'development' of the turn signal device over time. Heck, I'm old enough that I recall (as a child) riding in an old english Austin A40 van, in which the driver would reach over to a knob at the top centre of the metal dashboard, and when turned left or right this would trigger the appropriate illuminated pointer device in the B pillar. In the US, a number of requirements were imposed on automobile manufacturers for safety reasons in 1967; one of these was the activation of the signals with a light touch on the turn signal stalk, which would then cancel once released to aid lane changing.

In the last year or so, I've found myself driving a number of different rental cars in various vicinities. These modern vehicles typically feature a 'lane change' signal, where a light touch on the turn signal stalk will activate three blinks of the signal lights as a warning to other drivers that you're going to be changing lanes. Most recently, I accumulated over 1,500 miles driving a Citroen C3 in the UK, much of this on 'A' roads and motorways. Along with numerous other modern devices, this car included a lane departure warning (flashing dash light with chime) anytime the vehicle moved laterally too close to the solid or dotted white lines at the lane edges when the signal wasn't blinking. What I found annoying was how frequently the three blinks of the signal lights were completed prior to my lateral move, triggering the lane departure warning as I switched lanes. It was irritating enough that I would disengage it if I owned the vehicle.

On the bright side of things, last fall we were in Arizona, where a brother-in-law had rented a Jeep SUV of some description. The vehicle annoyed him with steering wheel vibrations, chimes, lights, etc., that he couldn't figure out; until he realized that he had to use his turn signals for his lane changes or be challenged by the car. Amused the hell out of me that it was re-training him to drive properly ...