When at an intersection, always be careful when figuring out who will be taking the first turn, the next, and so on. One of my biggest pet peeves is when somebody at an intersection fails to turn signal. I find this simple mistake infuriating at times. All it takes is the flick of a switch, but nevertheless, a decent amount of people overlook one of their car’s important safety features.

Many times I could have saved time or simply have been more aware of those around me if drivers would just indicate which direction they planned to go. When waiting for a gap in traffic to turn onto a road, some people turn signal late, or not at all when they want to turn onto the street I’m on. I find this particularly irritating, especially if I’ve been waiting for a while to find an opening to turn onto the next road.

I then question the decisions of others when this happens and think, do people care about others around them at all? Where is the integrity of others? A failure to signal or even the wrong turn signal could in the end cause a completely unnecessary accident.

I remember once at the intersection between North and South campus at my school, somebody was in the wrong lane to turn left while I was to their right, waiting to move forward. Right before I was about to go, the person to the left of me turned out in front of me, without signaling as well.

While it’s easy to get caught up in rants and stories about drivers making careless decisions, we must all remember to give people the benefit of the doubt at times. Somebody could be having a bad day, and simply forget to signal just once, and it just happens to affect others. In fact, there have been a couple of instances where I have forgotten to use my turn signal too. Signaling displays competence on the road.