CRESTVIEW — Trey Duncan moved his family to Crestview in the early 2000s to be close to his parents. While the Duncans embraced their new community, one thing jumped out at them.
“Nobody knows how to use their blinkers,” Duncan said, laughing. “Nobody!”
Turn signal use — or perhaps, the lack of it — is something residents may take for granted. No particular group is more guilty than another when it comes to not signaling, Duncan said.
“It’s kind of Crestview’s great social unifier,” he said. “Moms, dads, grandmas, black, white, student drivers: nobody uses them.”
Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Larry Ward, commander of the agency’s Crestview office, agreed.
“Every person driving a car — and I find myself sometimes being guilty of it — sometimes forgets to use them,” he said.
However, turn signal violations aren’t a reason to pull a motorist over, Ward said.
“It’s more of an annoyance than anything else,” he said. “It’s not something we issue citations for. If we wrote citations, we’d spend all day on a 12-hour shift stopping cars for not using them.”
So when should drivers use turn signals? Here are five main uses and procedures specified in the “Florida Driver’s License Handbook”:
●“You must use hand signals or directional signals to show you are about to turn.”
●“Turn signals are required by law when changing lanes.”
●“Turn signals are required by law when overtaking (passing) a vehicle.”
●“Give a turn signal for at least the last 100 feet before you make your turn …. Be sure that the drivers around you have time to see your signal before you move.”
●When making a turnabout, or “three-point turn,” “move as far right as possible, check traffic and signal a left turn.”
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview's turn signal problem (PHOTOS)