The Hazard Light: A Car Button in Need of Innovation
Sure, the law can tell us how to use it. But we humans have found better reasons to flash them off.
Are YOU one of those drivers that turns on their hazard lights for no apparent reason? Or are you one of those drivers that just goes bonkers seeing someone else turn on their hazard lights? Grrrrr.
Whether you’re annoyed about these lights or not, they seem to be something that cause a lot of discussion in the “road rage” discussion community — lots of drivers ranting at others about particular uses of this dashboard function that we don’t frequently use (unless you’re in Japan, and I’ll explain below). Esurance recently blogged about it, warning us how we may be subjecting ourselves to fines and tickets just by using it in the wrong way. Judging how differently each U.S. state considers its use, however, no wonder it is disputed all the time.
Let us reflect on these arguments, however, and think about what the wrong way really means: In crammed San Francisco, for example, it would seem socially foolish and inconsiderate to others to attempt to double-park without putting them on, even though parking to drop a friend off (c’mon, you’ve done this before) isn’t necessarily an emergency that alerts to a hazard ahead under California law. Furthermore, South Floridians have argued back and forth about putting hazard lights on during a downpour, while folks in Ohio discuss about using them for severe winter storms. In all of these cases, the folks that are disgusted by their technically-illegal use in a moving vehicle talk about how much they pay too much attention to the car in front of them while they are turned on. But then again, isn’t that the whole point about putting hazard lights on in the first place? In that sense, those drivers have done their job: alerting others to a hazard with considerate warning.
I think we need to start paying attention to the fact that perhaps the hazard light in and of itself was not constructed the right way for our human needs. It is frustrating that innovation has not caught up to the creative ways that humans have sought to use this decades-old button, especially since many of them are clamoring for a way to communicate their wishes and frustrations to other drivers in a more direct way.
There are plenty of examples throughout the United States and the rest of the world where humans treat the hazard light beyond a means to express a hazard. Ordinary drivers in mass numbers have decided that the hazard lights are more useful as a way to non-verbally communicate their thoughts to others. In Mexico, for example, drivers will oftentimes blink the hazard light to another oncoming car to warn them of an impending accident or hazard ahead. I’m sure it’s by no means what the inventors of the button intended, but it shows the light has been used as a tool for car-to-car communication, something that in this day and age you would assume someone would have figured out to build already.
Another example of a creative use of the hazard light would be in Japan — where these buttons are actually often used to express ‘thank you’ to another driver behind. It was one of the most amusing sights that I personally noticed during a journey on the expressways of Tokyo — yet at the same time I realized it was a great way to increase a driver’s ability to express their emotions (especially courtesy thank you’s) using car lights as a handy tool. Many Japanese drivers have mastered the art of locating the hazard buttons on a car as a result. Think about it — when a driver ahead merges carelessly in front of you, but then he or she raises his or her hand to signal “thanks”…doesn’t that end half of your urge to rage at the other person?
If there are so many natural uses of the hazard light that have reached the point of social acceptance, why is it that the law has technically prohibited its use in other ways, or why is it that automakers have not paid attention to improving this small, yet potentially valuable tool? Perhaps it’s because we don’t acknowledge it as a serious problem, or that it doesn’t seem economically productive to fix.
Let me share, then, a recent publication about accidents that relate to a lack of driver-to-driver communication: “In Little Falls, New Jersey, May Lee and her two children were run off the road by Milton Aganon, 25, who’d been tailgating her at 80 miles an hour and gesticulating at Lee to get out of the way. When Aganon finally passed Lee, he cut her off so suddenly that she was forced to swerve to the shoulder lane, flipped over a median and landed in a ditch. Both of Lee’s legs were broken, and the children suffered minor injuries. Aganon served nine months in jail.
The above-mentioned story mentions how the inability for the driver behind to convey his human “gesticulations” to the driver ahead caused a situation that was dangerous for both cars involved. In a separate case, a road rage video in Japan shows how a car that cuts off another driver fails to do what was culturally expected, as I had mentioned before: the double hazard light take. The result was a video on YouTube.
According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, reports of so-called “aggressive driving” incidents have increased by about 7 percent each year since 1990. Let this be a reminder that we must pay attention to the little things if are to make big changes — perhaps we can finally improve the hazard light once and for all in an effort to improve driver-on-driver communication.
