Historic Hillyard.com: Editorial

Vol. 2, Issue 11

June 5, 2005

EDITOR'S COMMENTARY

Right, Left, Stop or Wave?
by Luke Tolley, Guest Editor

I spent much of this past weekend on an ACES E-Z-Go trail utility vehicle (shameless plug). You might have seen it at the ChalkArtWalk - big, olive drab vehicle, looks like a golf cart and a Humvee mated. Anyways, for the event we spent a lot of time on the roads, scouting the places people where drawing, moving things around, etc. In that time I learned something. People don’t understand hand signals anymore. I learned them in Cub Scouts, 15 or 20 years ago, but I would swear I was the only one who knew them this last Saturday. No less than 10 times I raised by left hand in the air with my elbow at a 90-degree bend to signal a right hand turn, and each time a driver would wave to me like we were friends. Don’t get me wrong, I love the thought of a neighborhood where everybody knows everybody and we all wave to each other on the road, but we’re just not there yet. It was obvious none of them knew what I was doing.

Isn’t there something wrong with that? I admit it has only been 10 years since I took my driving test to get my license, but shouldn’t hand signals be something we all know, as drivers? Shouldn’t they be as understandable and recognizable as flashing emergency lights or flares on a dark highway?

p.s. For those of you who don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, the Washington State Department of Licensing provides this visual aid:

“Use hand signals when signal lights cannot be seen by other drivers.” - http://www.dol.wa.gov/ds/guide/guide4.htm

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Editorial Comments do not necessarily portray the views of Historic-Hillyard.com. The aim of this column is to inspire, embrace, and query our reading public. Hillyard, like all neighborhood communities, has general issues as well as issues specific to this community. It's easy to talk about what's right and good with our neighborhood, it's leaders and general public, but it takes a bold stance to voice and bring to the forefront those negative and not so good issues of the same.

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