Originally Posted by
deraltekluge
The proper hand signal for a left turn is to stick your arm straight out to the left, not pointing ahead to the intersection you're approaching. It sounds like you gave a confusing signal. But then, people are not used to seeing hand signals anymore, and it's possible that the driver would have misinterpreted anything you might have done.
Like I said, I'm not very diligent about signaling, but I assume that drivers are not familiar with hand signals. I point to intersections precisely because I'm afraid that a standard flat hand will be interpreted as a wave of "c'mon around".
As an aside, I once had to tow a car on a flatbed trailer that had no lights from Orangeburg South Carolina to Philadelphia, including through Washington DC (absolute WORST traffic east of the Mississippi...far worse than downtown Manhattan). I used standard hand signals the whole way and got some peculiar looks from drivers who obviously had no idea what I doing...but I was wrapped inside two tons of Chevy Suburban so I wasn't too concerned about other drivers' interpretations.