Dear Driver in the car at the front of the left-turning lane on Lake Shore Boulevard East in Toronto,
You were at the head of a queue of cars waiting for the left-turn signal on a major urban route. I was five cars back. When the left-turn signal illuminated, you sat motionless. Your car did not move. The drivers behind you waited impatiently. Finally, you made your turn, but by then you had wasted the light. I had to sit through another rotation of lights.
You know, many of our most iconic aphorisms are false. Take, for example, “Slow and steady wins the race.” It doesn’t. Slow and steady only wins the race if the race is being held to see who is the most slow-and-steady. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder; it makes the heart fonder of the absence. Plato said, “There is truth in wine and children.” Nope, children are notorious diminutive liars and too much wine makes people incoherent duplicitous bores.
You showed me, however, that there is one pithy observation that never fails to prove true – “If you are in a queue of cars waiting on a green left-turn signal, the car at the front will sit there like a dumbfounded zombie for at least thirty seconds when it finally appears.”
No matter where you go, or where you end up, its veracity always bears out. Left-turn hesitancy increased with the proliferation of mobile devices. The driver gets complacent (they know they will make the light) and decides to see what’s happening on social media. Engrossed as they are, they neglect to keep an eye out for the left-turn signal that those behind them covet.
Sadly, its truth does not make it any more comprehensible. How can a driver be surprised by the appearance of the left-turn signal? It’s the entire reason he or she is in the left lane. Does the driver suddenly forget where he or she is going?
What about you? You sat there in your car – frozen – mystified by the appearance of the left-turn signal. When you are at home and you turn on the coffee maker, are you gobsmacked when hot coffee appears? When you flick a light switch, do you recoil from the light in abject confusion? How can you be surprised by the appearance of a left-turn signal when you are in the left lane waiting for it?
How? In the name of all that is holy and sacred, how?
Left-turn signals are not ambiguous. They aren’t hard to decipher. Left-turn signals are green arrows pointed toward – wait for it – the left. Left-turn signals are often found across from the left-turn lane. Left-turn lanes are chosen by drivers who intend to turn left. That’s the reason why all the cars are in the left-turn lane. They all share one common immediate goal – to turn left.
What were you thinking on that fateful afternoon? Were you on Twitter watching clips of people arguing in Ottawa? Were you “liking” something? Or were you indulging in an old-fashioned daydream? Did you simply blank out? Were you talking on the phone, telling someone who you told six minutes ago that you were six minutes away that you were now, one minute later, five minutes away? I guess I’ll never know.
This I do know, however, that time and again, when that green beauty lights up, the car at the head of the line will sit immobile. Meanwhile, all the other cars will wait impatiently. Precious left-turn time will be wasted. Left-turn signals are found on streets where it is difficult to turn left. Often, the only way a driver can turn on these busy intersections is on the left-turn signal. If the lead car stands motionless while its operator wallows in befuddled paralysis, then the cars at the back must wait for the entire traffic light rotation.
That’s what happened to me. You hesitated. I lost.
There’s one more aphorism proved false.
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