She says...

Press, 25 February 1977, Page 8

She says...

When I was talking last week about the confusion caused by the changed traffic laws, I didn’t get around to the new laws requiring signalling of all turns. Now that’s one change that I’m all for. The only things wrong are that it should have been introduced about three years ago, and that it is never going to work unless traffic officers around the country show about 10 times as much enthusiasm for enforcing it as they've shown to date. The fact remains that we’ve long had a law on the books requiring drivers to signal right turns — and yet you’ve only got to drive a few blocks to see several drivers fail to signal right turns without anyone taking any official notice. Just to underline this, the other day I was driw> ing along Manchester Street behind a traffic officer, whose motor-cycle was behind a van. The van slowed sharply and then made a sudden right turn into an entranceway, forcing both the traffic Officer and I, in turn, to take avoiding action. Did the upholder of the motoring law take off after the miscreant and tick him off for his behaviour? Not on your life. I can’t believe that they’ll pay much more attention to chasing up those of us who don’t bother to signal left turns, either. Since the new laws came into force (I nearlytyped “farce” there bymistake; a subliminal slip), there’s been only a very small increase in the number of people signalling left turns. After all, some used to signal

them fairly frequently before the change.

On laned roads, for a start, signalling's quite vital, yet every day in Chrsitchurch you can see people switching from lane to lane without the slightest thought of signalling. They’ve done it for years, and they very, very rarely risk getting pulled up for it. And while I’m on the subject of signals, I agree with those who’ve derided the new officiallyapproved hand signal for a left turn: stretching out one’s arm along the top of the seat. What a load of rubbish. In many vehicles any such signal is invisible; a male driver risks having his female passenger slap his face for overfamiliarity; and there was nothing wrong with the unofficial “arm out the window and bent over the roof” style of signal that has been fairly widely accepted (and certainly understood) for about 30 years. — Barbara Petre