As I was driving down the street yesterday, a car came onto the road from a cross street. I had a green light at that intersection at the time, and the thought occurred to me that he had turned left onto my street on a red light.

With no turn signal.

Every day in this city, millions of turns occur without signals. A thought occurred to me yesterday. Turn signals are so important to safety and traffic flow, that in driver education they teach an emergency protocol for dealing with a broken signal. Most people are at least generally familiar with these hand signals, which are the same used on bikes, snowmobiles, and other vehicles somtimes lacking signals.

And yet, nobody uses them in New Orleans. I’ve long since given up trusting people’s turn signals here, so I don’t know why it still bugs me. Maybe it’s just so ingrained from learning to drive in Michigan.