Turn Signals

Hi All!

Yesterday was a nice, peaceful day here in my neck of the woods. For the most part!

I headed over to our church to drop off a check (before the first of the year, you know!) and stopped at a little Chinese restaurant on the way home for some lunch. While the Chinese food wasn't' the best I had ever had, it was still good. I did wish that I had remembered to take my book or my ipod with me so I didn't just sit there by myself eating. That was a bit boring but . . . oh well!

Just as I pulled in our driveway it began to rain. About an hour later the rain turned into snow with big, fluffy flakes floating down from the sky. Within a half hour the ground was covered in white - the second time in a little over a week! Quite a record for Texas!

I snuggled up with the kitties and stayed warm while watching the snow. Hubby came home early from work just in case the roads turned nasty like they did last week. Thankfully, that didn't happen!

As I was snuggling with the kitties I was remembering my trip to work on Monday and thinking about turn signals on cars. They are still standard equipment on cars, right? They aren't optional, are they?

I was just wondering because pretty much NONE of the cars who cut me off during my drive to work on Monday were using their turn signals. In fact, I watched one man weave in and out of traffic for about five minutes with nary a signal in sight. He was totally oblivious to the fact that he was causing chaos on the road since the people he was cutting off had to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting him. This braking caused quite the chain reaction of braking and let me tell you - it wasn't fun! Did I mention that this particular man was chatting away on his cell phone the entire time?

After him came a young girl who was obviously in training for the Indy 500 because her speed was WAY too fast for the amount of traffic on the road. She too cut multiple people off trying to get ahead of the slower traffic. She too neglected to use her turn signals.

Just a minute later another car pulled in front of me sans signal and then braked nearly to a stop as he/she (I couldn't figure out which it was from the back) waited for a chance to get into the next lane. Never did this person signal.

After finally getting rid of that "good" driver, I watched yet another driver exit the highway - from the far left lane. This was accomplished without any turn signals to warn the other drivers and was done at a rather high rate of speed while fitting into the smallest of gaps between cars in the other lanes.

Finally, I was off the tollway and on a "surface road." Surely things would be better here, right? Guess again! Between the tollway and my office - three different cars apparently had never heard of turn signals.

What is going on? Is there a trend that I haven't heard of for conserving energy by not using turn signals? Are new cars not coming with these things standard anymore? Does driver's ed forget to tell people about turn signals? Or are people simply too lazy to flick a little stick to signal?

Come on, people! It isn't that hard!

Trisha

Voice Update: I am massaging and inhaling my little heart out. Last night while watching tv I noticed that my neck was sore, sore, sore. Not something I noticed before actually touching my neck. The muscles were all so tender! I spent a lot of time rubbing the muscles of my neck and jaw to make them feel better. This isn't something that is normal for me so I was a bit surprised at just how tender the muscles were. I guess I need to work on that as well as the other massage and the inhalation exercises this week.

Looking for a worthy charity to give money to before the first of the year? Why not check out the National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association?