{"id":2142,"date":"2012-08-20T17:56:50","date_gmt":"2012-08-20T17:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/not-signaling-a-real-danger\/"},"modified":"2012-10-04T17:45:51","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T17:45:51","slug":"not-signaling-a-real-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/not-signaling-a-real-danger\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Signaling a Real Danger"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Signals\"<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>Aug. 5th, 2012
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

A new study done in the USA\u00a0 says that not using, or improperly using turn signals is responsible for as many as 2 million crashes annually.<\/p>\n

According to research by the Society of Automotive Engineers, drivers either neglect to use their signals when changing lanes \u2013 or fail to turn the signals off about 48% of the time.\u00a0 And when making a turn the failure rate is around 25%.\u00a0 That works out to 2 billion times a day when drivers fail to use their signals, or 750 billion times annually.<\/p>\n

But why aren\u2019t people using them? Maybe they are just Lazy. Maybe they need more training. Maybe they just don\u2019t care about others on the road.\u00a0 It really doesn\u2019t take much effort to extend your finger and flick the signal. Many drivers don\u2019t seem to have any problem extending their finger at other drivers in a different signalling gesture. Whatever the reason, the SAE study says the problem results in about 2 million collisions annually.\u00a0 That\u2019s more than twice the 950,000 collisions attributed to distracted driving, which has become one of the largest concerns for drivers and law makers across North America.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a first of its kind report on a subject that amazingly, has never been studied,\u201d said Richard Ponziani, P.E., President of RLP Engineering and author of the report. Yet, despite the fact that turn signals are simple, ubiquitous and \u201cextremely effective,\u201d there is an epidemic lack of compliance even though \u201call drivers have an ongoing duty to use it, just as they have a duty to stop at a stop sign or at a red light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anecdotal evidence suggests that police put little effort into enforcement, less than they devote to speeding, or running stop signs and red lights.\u00a0 Other than shifting priorities, the new study suggests an alternative that it dubs the \u201cSmart Turn Signal.\u201d<\/p>\n

They \u201care the perfect complement to the Stability Control System since Stability Control predominately prevents single-vehicle crashes, whereas the Smart Turn Signal prevents multi-vehicle crashes,\u201d suggested Ponziani.<\/p>\n

Such a system would automatically shut off a turn signal, likely by timing out after a set delay or by detecting when a vehicle has finished changing lanes \u2013 much as today\u2019s cars automatically cancel the signals after making a turn at an intersection.<\/p>\n

For scofflaws who simply don\u2019t use their signals, the system would work much like a seatbelt reminder.\u00a0 It would be able to sense if drivers routinely ignore their turn signals and start to flash what the study calls a \u201cfriendly\u201d reminder.<\/p>\n

Using the latest electronics, a Smart Turn Signal system would actually be simpler and less expensive than the current mechanical trip mechanism, according to Ponziani, a press release concluding that, \u201cThis breakthrough represents a perfect opportunity to significantly reduce multi-vehicle crash rates, reduce vehicle cost and make driving a lot more friendly and courteous across the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Post<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aug. 5th, 2012 A new study done in the USA\u00a0 says that not using, or improperly using turn signals is responsible for as many as 2 million crashes annually. According to research by the Society of Automotive Engineers, drivers either neglect to use their signals when changing lanes \u2013 or fail to turn the signals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,81,9,38,6,5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pedVzR-yy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2142"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2147,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142\/revisions\/2147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}