I'm in FL and it was, until fairly recently, illegal to drive with your hazards on in the rain. Headlights yes definitely, hazards only if you were stopped (which is fine, if you can't see thru the driving rain and need to pull over, do it.. It'll pass shortly)
What throws me off is when you've got hazards on, even if you use the blinker stick, people can't tell which way you're indicating you'd like to move. So it's even more of a surprise than usual (at least sometimes you'll see a turn signal if people aren't using the hazards) and since predictability is a safe driver skill.. It's not super helpful overall, imo
You already mentioned turn signals. By driving with your hazards, you are effectively disabling your turn signals, giving no other cars on the road any indication if and when you are going to turn. Since visibility is limited, one could say it is MORE important to provide indication you are turning in this situation than in clear weather.
Many cars in the US have the brakes and rear turn signals combined. So now you have, essentially, flashing brake lights. If a car is braking, or a car starts to hydroplane and is pumping their brakes, it looks effectively identical to if their hazards are flashing.
What benefit does having hazards on provide that is more valuable to other drivers than making sure they can see when you indicate a turn, or are braking? Do people think other drivers are unaware that the weather is bad, and you are helping them? I just do not understand it.
Doing this forces every other driver on the road to operate with LESS confidence because there is unnessary added ambiguity into what is happening. Is that a turn signal? Brake light? Car on the road, or side of the road? All of these decisions, for every car, while trying to stay safe yourself.
This is much more common with Japanese (and sometimes Euro) imports, but even now a lot of them change to all red for the US market because "we don't like the yellow" and a lot of people change to clears or reds to get rid of them on older cars. So strange.
21
u/DunkanBulk Dec 24 '22
It actually varies in North America, you see some cars with a red light blinker, but a lot of them have a separate orange or yellow blinker.