this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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Sounds reasonable. Personally I just want front turn signals to be visible from the opposite side again.
And also like, used at all.
Here's an idea. How about we zap the drivers after they make a turn if they didn't use a turn signal beforehand? 😀
Can we do this in the same bill as the popup spikes that take out your tires if you stop across the crosswalk? The guided RPGs replacing red light cams can wait a little longer.
Cars with lane-keep assist with vibrate the steering wheel and beep at you. It's at least something but I think most people turn it off if it gets annoying
Anyone complaining about lane keep not letting them change lanes or make turns is telling on themselves
There are a couple situations where it's annoying and I turn it off. My truck has the "steer back into lane" style assist, but it's tried to push me off the road before while I was towing a trailer on some narrow 1-lane roads. Some of the corners it's just not possible to get around without touching the center line.
The vast majority of the time it stays on though and is quite helpful.
Couldn't we just use the point system from 5th element? The car noticed you did something illegal and dedicated from your point pool.
Are you sure you want something like that?
Not sure if I read that correctly, but I don't think this has ever been the case?
I mean when a car is coming at me from a cross street, I want to be able to tell if they're turning or just an asshole not using their signal. On some cars, the turn signal is mounted so far to the side that if they're approaching from my right and turning right onto the same street as me, I can't see that turn signal. Sometimes combined with the roundness of the nose exacerbating the problem.
I think what he wants is the front turn signal to wrap around the front, so I can see the left signal from the right quarter.
I'm not aware that this is not the case, but I don't know that I would have noticed if it was not.
Isn't that the case for pretty much everything? Newer cars alternate blinking their headlights and the signal indicator, and even cars w/ the turn signal on the side will have some light bleed through since it's all one assembly. In the majority of cars, I can see their turn signals when they're perpendicular to me. The larger issue is that most people in my area don't bother to use their signals in the first place.
Yea, that's part of why I don't know for sure if they make cars the way the guy at the top of this thread is describing.
Same. I don't think I've ever seen a car that can show me the signal on the opposite side of the car, but I have seen a lot of cars where I can see the indicator while stopped at an intersection and the car is perpendicular to me, since I have a little bit of angle to see the edge w/ the indicator.
99% of the time, it's not an issue, and the other 1% of the time it doesn't really matter if I can see the indicator (I.e. they're already halfway turning, so they're angled away from me).
Yes that's all I want, to be able to see the indicator again. A lot of newer cars have moved them too far to the side of the vehicle.
I encounter this pretty often because a Boston area streets are terrible and the drivers are worse, so a visible indicator helps all drivers make traffic flow more smoothly.
i don't think that was ever required in the US. it is elsewhere though.
Can't speak to "required." But I know it used to be done.
I'm pretty sure most cars have a turn signal near the headlights, and one on the mirror or on the side for that use case, no?
Actually I think I remember watching a technology connections video about how card in the US can use the headlights as a turn signal, or something like that. I don't think that's allowed in Europe or the EU or whatever.
Found it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1lZ9n2bxWA
Theres a saying in computer stuff that applies nicely here. PEBKAC, problem exists between keyboard and computer...turn signals have to be turned on, no amount of engineering can fix bad driving.
Heads up, it’s actually keyboard and chair, not keyboard and computer
Dang it, sometimes I just type stuff and dont think about what I typed (the irony of what I was writing out)
I've always heard it as "PICNIC"
Problem In Chair, Not In Computer
And never forget about the I-D ten T error.
ID10T for those who didn't get it.
Layer 0 obfuscation error.
Oh, you think I need a new chair? Will the Internet come back then?
How would you do that so it isn't ugly as hell and isn't prone to misunderstanding?
same way we do with lights now, design them attractively. It is not always successful and that's on the manufacturers.
what about it is confusing? green = not coming at you so it's okay to turn left (or whatever).
This wouldn’t really be helpful to those who are colorblind.
Somebody better tell traffic light designers
Red is always on top (at least in Europe) so even color blind people know what the signal is.
okay, pick a different color then. it's a solvable problem.
It's not that easy I think (and you had by far the best idea in this thread now).
Can't make them red or orange, they'd be just turn signals.
Can't make them green, that wouldn't work for color blind people, and since you actually need the color for understanding what signal you get (unlike traffic lights) you actually have to make it work
And arguably you can't really make them white, because you can't see a white blinking light inside a headlight and couldn't differentiate it from the back light. Same with light blue.
Which leaves darker shades of blue, which are really hard to see in daylight.
sliding light or arrows
How would that work? If you look from the side you suddenly don't see anything again, or an arrow point forwards or backwards?
If you look from the front, current turn signals work for that already.
I've seen newer cars turn the headlight off while the turn indicator is on, so you get a sort of double-blink effect.
I don't see any reason why we can't just have the whole headlight blink yellow as well with the turn indicator. LEDs are everywhere and can handle changing colors really easily, so it's not hard to require that for all new cars.
Those are typically DRLs. Chrysler did this for a while in the 2000s-2010s (maybe still, idk), where the high beam - in DRL mode - turns off while the turn signal is doing it's thing. Other manufacturers do this with dedicated DRLs, sometimes integrating the DRLs and turn signals into one multicolored unit (Kia Telluride, for example).
No manufacturer shuts off a headlight for a turn signal when the headlights are intentionally turned on (whether by light sensors at night, or by the driver).
Absolutely, but that doesn't solve the problem that's talked about here (seeing the turn signal from the other side of the vehicle). It might be clearer what the turn signal is, but if you look at the right side of a vehicle, you won't be able to see the left headlight, even when it's massive.
So it sounds like you're checking to see when the light turns off, to know that the car is going.
Sounds like what we actually need is a green accelerator light on the front of the car.
Some of the new Kias have the rear indicators in the bumper. Why are they hiding them?
Because the designers and marketers were given priority over the safety engineers.