It has not escaped my notice that the majority of those who traverse the highways and byways in the modern automobile are unaware of a particular feature introduced on all cars made before at least 1957. I've been around only a small handful of pre-1957 automobiles and therefore can not make any absolute statements concerning the presence of what those in the industry refer to as the blinker.

I know they had appeared by 1957, because it was a venerable '57 Chevy (the Belair for those who are extremely literal) in which I was riding one day, when, upon executing a right turn without the aid of his blinker, the driver, unaware of the consequences of his action, prompted me to investigate the area of his car immediately surrounding the port side of the steering column, and there was, in fact, a blinker lever present. I had thought to myself that perhaps in a car of this vintage the blinker novelty had been omitted, due to its having yet to be invented, or maybe because it was just not considered cool enough for such a soon-to-be icon of the material-minded American public. If you have ever sat inside a new or freshly restored '57 Chevy, you will recall the significant expanse of finely polished dash board containing several tons of steel, paint, and wax from which a salvage expert might be able to build several nice, compact cars. So you can clearly follow my reasoning that such a vehicle might not be fitted with anything so trivial as a blinker which might disrupt the view of that which lies beyond.

I quickly reached the conclusion that, due to the presence of the article under examination not being used by my driver friend, it was broken, inoperative, withdrawn from active duty, or some such thought. But then I reasoned that he, being a master mechanic of impeccable pedigree and also the individual responsible for the actual hands-on restoration of the automobile, surely would not have...nay, could not have been capable of leaving a stone unturned in the rejuvenation of his beloved antique mode of transportation. This then left me with only one dreadful conclusion - he had literally chosen to forsake the law of the land and make a right turn without bothering to signify his intentions to his fellow travelers on the road of life.

I hung my head in shame. A brother of mine...a son of Adam just as myself had purposefully jeopardized the safety of his traveling companion and countless innocent drivers and automobile passengers by failing to use his turn signal. He had distinctly neglected the use of that simple lever on the left side of the steering column, just a few inches beyond the very steering wheel he now grasped. Actually he wasn't grasping, per se, the steering wheel, but rather he was resting his left hand upon the top rim of it the way one of those ancient statues might have rested his hand upon his knee. And my friend's right hand was busy clutching the shift lever situated on the right side of the steering column.

At this juncture I was about to declare that he was as perfectly capable of turning on his blinker as the next driver, unless, of course, his left hand had been mangled by a farm implement, which, despite his seeming inability to actually grasp the steering wheel, was clearly not the case. But as I pondered the situation, called upon all my deductive resources, and, taking each fact in turn, examined the situation in the clear light of logic, I concluded that, assuming this guy had only two hands, there was no scientific manner with which to activate the blinker whilst maintaining proper control of the car. I made a rapid sweep of the driver's side of the car and noticed no third hand attached to my friend. As I thought, but best to be certain in any actual experiment.

A new line of thought suddenly presented itself to me. Not only does this explain the growing number of apparently blinkerless automobiles roaming the roads, but it sheds insight onto the ever present problem of speeding drivers. It is a simple matter of the human frame's inability to conquer infinity - one of those laws of thermodynamics - the fourteenth, I believe. It's the same problem experienced by Jonathan when he missed the part about not eating because he and his armor bearer had been off whipping up on the Philistines. Even if there existed, on occasion, a driver blessed with the addition of a third hand (the writer assumes the reader will assume the writer assumes a theoretical third arm with which to facilitate the theoretical third hand), who is to say that the poor beggar's brain has the necessary departments to conduct successful simultaneous operations with all three? A third hand might prove as useless as the second ear to the average child, who, on good days, can only hear, it seems, out of one. You will remember the mention to speeding - well, to extend this obvious concept to the inability of the average mortal to watch both the road and the speedometer at the same time is but a short step of reason. Two eyes though we have, who but the extreme gifted and a handful of reptiles who, to my knowledge, do not even drive, can watch two different and distinctive phenomenon, each with one eye, process the results to a successful conclusion, and not need a handful of strong asprin-like products at the end of the day?

So, where I was once a harsh judge of the driving habits of my fellow man, I am now understanding. Where I once hurled insults at other inhabited vehicles, under my breath, naturally, for it is not polite to insult another driver (not to mention the fact that it is outright illegal on the Autobahn, or so I hear), I now remain silent. Where I once kept a more than reasonably safe distance between myself and another car displaying symptoms, I thought, of reckless inconsideration, I now tailgate with pure abandon, knowing in my heart that I may put my trust fully in another member of the traveling community. For we are all under the same laws of nature, and surely we all are looking out for each other, are we not?

Dane Tate
2/7/04