Originally Posted by
chaadster
You didn’t miss much. It’s basically just been people insisting over and over again that their intuition is better than reason, and being totally unable to acknowledge and assimilate any information, facts, or suggestions to the contrary.
It basically boils down for them, as I understand it, to the core belief that the standard signals expected and required to be known by all motor vehicle operators and road traffic (e.g. bicycles and horses) actually is not known to anyone except an elite cabal of cyclists, and in the face of such gross ignorance, the best course of action is to abandon the reasoned processes which bind American vehicular society and instead rely on our primal instincts, pointing like “me Tarzan, you Jane.”
Throughout my life, I've found it important to be able to communicate effectively in ways that leave as little as possible open for interpretation. While sharing the road with vehicles that can crush me in an instant, I'm going to err on the side of assuming drivers are idiots who can't remember all the left arm signals from when they took the driver's test, and have never had to use them a single time in their lives. Relying on a "primal" signal that leaves no question about my intent is a safer choice. I'm strongly in favor of returning home unbrioken. The fact that vehicle codes permit me to legally use that "primal" signal means that I am in compliance with "vehicular society".