When I was learning to drive a car many years ago, there used to be a whole lot of rules to keep track of. Which lane you were supposed to use, how fast you were supposed to go, minute details like that, which always confused and angered me.
Gradually, over the last decade, most of those “traffic laws” have been discarded as frivolous at best and harmful at worst. Most of them serve only to confuse the brain and prevent you from reaching your destination in a timely manner, in violation of my constitutional rights to do whatever I want and not be inconvenienced in any way.
Chief among these useless woke “laws” was a feature that used to be standard on all vehicles — “turn signals.” For you youngsters out there, turn signals were these awful things that lit up the front and back of your car. They blinked annoyingly for everyone to see. You were supposed to activate them whenever you wanted to make a turn or — and this is the crazy part — change lanes. Every single time! I don’t know about you, but I change lanes up to three or four hundred times in an average 15-minute drive to the grocery store. That seems like a lot of completely useless blinking. It can’t possibly be good for the environment (not that I care about the environment — I’m actually using a separate AI prompt to write every single paragraph of this post, and to remind me how to comb my hair.)
I have been on the forefront of the pushback against turn signals for years. Why is it any of your business if I want to get in the lane ahead of you on the highway going 130 kmh? Why should I waste my precious energy flicking the little switch on my steering wheel when I could be singing along to Zac Brown’s “Chicken Fried” with my head sticking out the window?
My biggest gripe with turn signals — or as I call them “virtue signals” — is that they completely rob me of the element of surprise, which is necessary if I am to defeat all the other drivers on the road. As far as I’m concerned, the more life resembled George Miller’s visionary take on modern life, Mad Max: Fury Road, the better.
It’s clear everyone agrees with me. I drive the QEW from Hamilton to Toronto every week and almost nobody uses those godawful things. Even school buses have given up that pointless cause. If some Corolla driver ratchets up to 150 to slide ahead of me with only 2/3 of a carlength to fit, I salute them as brave patriots, then write down their license plate so that I can track them down to send them a bouquet of peonies later — or at least I would, if, like me and all sane people, they didn’t have blackout screens over their plates.
Using a turn signal is now punishable by a $300 fine in Ontario, or a night in prison, with multiple-offenders being extradited to the United States to be disappeared permanently by ICE. In my corner of the province, there is little danger of anyone incurring such a penalty.
Driving is a lot better when you are free of distractions like blinking lights. Not having to think about my own turning, or anybody else’s, frees me up for more important tasks while driving, like writing this blog and scrolling reels on Instagram, both of which I am doing while I am currently driving 70 km on a two-lane arterial road in my hometown while I go to pick up sushi for lunch.
Life is about survival of the strongest, and not coddling the weak, or handing out participation trophies for so-called “safety.” All the losers who honk at me when I begin my left turn at full speed as they approach the intersection are just jealous — if they want to avoid being t-boned, they should know to brake on that green. And don’t even get me started on pedestrians who think they have some kind of “right of way.”
Now that we’ve accomplished abolishment of turn signals, we’re only a short time away from my next goal, which will please Audi drivers — changing all speed “limits” to minimums, and fining anyone who goes under (or even insufficiently over.) I say turn and burn like Top Gun Maverick, baby! I’m also thinking we should get rid of school zones: the best lesson these kids can learn is that life is a race and the most important thing in the world is to come in first.
This post is dedicated to my friend in the Nissan with license place D*** *19 who embodies its spirit. I see you brother!
Note: A previous version of this post erroneously credited “Chicken Fried” to Eric Church instead of The Zac Brown Band. This has been corrected.
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Scotto Williams - Better Late Than Never Blog 
LOL. I like traffic lights but only when they’re green.
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