After the first few queries, a tiny part of me kind of felt guilty, a little remorseful that I was making posts like these. Slightly reluctant to buy into the popular notion that I’m not so much of a critical individual not afraid to speak about the taboo topic of racial stereotypes, but just a straight up racist (which I vehemently deny, since that would mean I hate 100% of a particular demographic which is genuinely false).
But all that guilt was quickly washed away this morning, when my leisurely drive into work today was soured by an impatient, militant pitbull of a black woman who decided to lay down on the horn of her car because I couldn’t read minds. Which brings me to the latest query in honor of Black History Month:
What in history led to the modern day aversion that black people have with utilizing turn signals?
There’s a three-way intersection on the final stretch before I arrive to work, where 99% of the time, oncoming traffic turns onto the road that I’m turning off of, but I have the stop sign, so I have to wait. 0% of black drivers use their turn signals predicating their upcoming turn, so I have to wait. Despite the fact that I know that 99% of the drivers are probably going to be turning right, I don’t want to be the guy that assumes an oncoming car is going to turn, and then get T-boned by the 1% chance that a guy really was going straight. It is genuinely bothersome that 0% of black drivers use their turn signals, because I am all about efficiency and consideration, and such an inconsideration defies both concepts.
This morning, I pull up to the stop sign, and I see two oncoming cars coming to the intersection. I’m 99% sure they’re both going to turn right, but naturally, neither actually uses their turn signal to let me know that hey, it’s alright, go ahead and turn here, homey, we’re turning right, so you’re safe. Before the first car even begins to turn, the pitbull behind me starts laying down on her horn. Wtf? I’m sorry that I can’t read the minds of your fellow turn signal averse folks, and don’t want to risk the opportunity of getting plowed into by oncoming traffic. With my mood immediately soured, I hesitated a few extra seconds to piss her off deliberately, and at the next stop sign, I stopped extra long, and leisurely stretched out my arms and shoulders in self-congraturation of a successful drive into work. Watching her big pitbull mouth mouthing obscenities and yapping to herself how she hated considerate and safe drivers like me. And then I flipped her the bird after I assured myself that she wasn’t possibly a co-worker in the same premises.
Thank you, pitbull, for alleviating me of any remaining remorse I may have had for honoring Black History Month with a barrage of racially-insensitive queries to why you people act like you people.
So anyway, the question now is why, black people don’t ever use their turn signals? It’s not just this one isolated incident either, leaving my neighborhood on a regular basis results in identical results – I have to wait for cars to dedicate to their turns into the hood before exiting safely, because 0% of them are using their turn signals. But I’m slightly less tempted to flick them off, because there’s a chance that these inconsiderate fucks also live in the hood, and the last thing I really want to do is piss off my potential neighbors, deliberately.
One of my best friends through high school was black/Dominican, and riding with him in his Saturn stick-shift station wagon, I always observed that he too, never used turn signals, when weaving in and out of traffic at 90 mph on a 35 mph posted speed limit Guinea Rd. Or just in general. Just like the vast majority of black motorists I see throughout Metro Atlanta who don’t ever use their turn signals to indicate their lane changes or intents to turn.
The racially-insensitive historical hypothesis to this question goes back as far as when it was expected for early motorists and bicyclists to use hand signals to indicate their intents to turn while in transit. And since pretty much all black people back then were perceived as thieves, and always on the run from the law or arrest, one of the best means of evasion was to leave the pursuers in the unknown – don’t let ’em know when they’re turning or making a move. Such behavior has been genetically passed down throughout the last few generations of black people which brings us to today, where like many behavioral dispositions, are result of instinct and completely oblivious to their stereotypical actions.
So in short, the conclusion to the question is simple – they don’t use turn signals, because they don’t want anyone but them to know what they’re actually going to do. And I don’t think they’re simply vigilant enough to know that it irritates the rest of the world.
