Pet Peeve, Pt. 2

Hey folks,
I recently found out that I have another pet peeve you might be interested in!

First a riddle, when you’re driving down the road and you want to turn down the lane to visit grandmother, what do you do?

You turn on your blinker!!! (Sorry, this riddle is not very good.)

I like New Mexico, I like the people of New Mexico, I even like the endearing way they give directions (see Where You Going), but for the love of baby kittens, I cannot understand why these hosers cannot figure out how to use a blinker.

Every time I go for a little jaunt on my bike, in my car, on my feet, I am baffled by the lack of signaling people provide here. It’s as if the government mandated that everyone break off that little lever sticking out from the side of the steering column.

I have never been to a place where people so wholly deny the existence of turn signals, even cops find it quite unnecessary. I learned this lesson while narrowly avoiding death on my bicycle, not once, but twice.

Riding down Cerrillos a red Chevy Blazer with tinted windows sidled up beside me. They began slowing down as we neared the intersection, but made no indication that they would be turning into my lane. I gripped my brakes, but continued forward and then they turned directly in front of me. Rather than go over my handlebars I braked gently and ran into the side of the truck while shouting curse words. I like to curse.

A cop did it to me the second time, but I didn’t hit that one for fear of being tasered.

New Mexico is a very scenic place; maybe everyone is so enamored with the views that they cannot look down to reach the turn signal. Or maybe… well, hell. I don’t know.

As a result, I’ve taken to signaling everything. When I’m biking I do the hand signals as I turn. I use hand signals when I’m walking in the grocery story. I use them in my car. Hell, I even signal when I roll over in bed.

All of this in the hopes that someone here will kindly learn to use signals too. And if not, I will curse them.

Here are some examples of blinkers:

1. This is a very nice blinker.

2. This is how we do it on a bike.

3. I don’t know where a blinker would go on this one.