Are indicators an option?

In my lifetime I’ve driven an incredible amount of miles. Especially now that we drive the Toronto/LA route, and back, once every year. Also as a child our family didn’t fly anywhere. Our family holidays were always ones that were accessible by car, so I have seen many freeways. But lately, there is something that I’ve begun noticing that I don’t recall seeing in the past, over all those other miles, a trend on the rise. I wonder if you’ve noticed it also?

The trend of car makers no longer building vehicles with indicators as a standard, “comes with the car” feature. It appears, by how many drivers are going without, that it has to be some new option, although I do not recall being asked at the dealership if I would like to purchase the “indicator package” for my new vehicle. So I mean what gives? Where have all the indicators gone? Could it be like many other things in this world, a standard safety feature has now become a premium one, that not everybody can afford to own?

That just seems silly. I mean everybody wants to get from point A to point B safely, right? Auto manufacturers wouldn’t build something that was sub-par in safety, now would they? Nah. The airbag with the shrapnel in it that was installed in our daughters vehicle was an oversight, right? Just like the months, and months, and months, people are waiting to have these airbags replaced is a simple lack of product, right? Or the faulty transmission recall on the Jeep Cherokee that may or may not be the reason why a young, brilliant actor’s life was taken from him so soon. Small minor details, oversights if you were. Sorry, I digress, this isn’t about the manufacturers, this posting about things that make me “go hmmm” is actually about the operators of the vehicles.

So let’s get back to that, shall we.

Now forgive me, but I’m about to go on an excursion. I’m going on the jump to conclusion field trip, as dangerous as conclusion jumping is, I’m taking it for you. The bottom line is I assume that all vehicles come STANDARD WITH indicators. And that these are intended to allow driver A to indicate to every other driver on the road where he/she is going, or where he/she would like to be going. So if indicators, flashers, tickers, whatever the hell you call them, from what I can deduce, come standard on every single vehicle on the road, why aren’t people using them??

Are we drivers lazy? Tired? Selfish? Dumb? All of the above? Or have we become conditioned to the fact that the second you put your indicator on to make that lane change, that you either want, or need to make, the other driver isn’t going to let you in. In fact, in my experience more times than not, another driver will speed up to make lane changing next to impossible. It is a rare bird on the road who lifts their foot off their gas pedal every so slightly to allow somebody in front of them. And to you, the rare fine driver who allows an indicating driver over in front of you, without knowing their reasoning, I salute you.

To those of you who do not, all I can say is hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.