Emergency Blinkers

Emergency blinkers were made standard on American cars in 1967. No doubt they have saved many accidents, not to mention lives.

Out here in the suburbs, safety is the last thing they're used for. There is one, and only one thing they are used for. For idiots to park in an illegal spot and communicate "I'll just be here a minute, so it's really OK for me not to waste my personal time finding a legal parking spot".

Fine. There are lazy people everywhere. But these idiots often perform these antics in places that impact other drivers. This goes beyond lazy and straight into rude, arrogant AND lazy.

And once one idiot starts doing it, it essentially opens the door for all idiots to follow suit - and good god, there are a lot of them. Negotiating parking lots becomes a nightmare.

And like the boy who cried wolf, you no longer think of them as signaling a problem and you just drive on.