A letter to Congress

Dear Congreswoman Capps,

This letter asks letter asks for your support for, and introduction of an amendment to the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. As you are aware, the NTMVS Act created the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NHTSA is charged with developing and enforcing safety, theft-resistance, and fuel economy standards for motor vehicles. I believe that there is an unregulated safety issue on the roads, and I am asking that you introduce legislation directing NHTSA to develop new safety standards regulating this issue.

Imagine that you are sitting in your American-made Hyundai Sonata, pulling up to an intersection, waiting paitently at the traffic light for the left-arrow to turn green. The Mexican-born Ford Fusion in front of you has its turn signal on. This is where things get tricky. You engage your turn-signal as the red LEDs before you illuminate. Together, the two sets of turn-signals make a beautiful symphony. Before you know it, the Fusion's signal goes silent, making your signals unexpected soloists. Something is clearly going wrong. The beautiful symphony is nothing but a crude, dissonant, rhythm-less brass line. In a misguided effort to right this wrong, you sit at the light, manually flicking your turn-signal on and off in sync with the Fusion.

Congresswoman, the need to manually flick your turn-signal is more distracting than texting while driving. It can leave you unaware of your surroundings, oblivious to pedestrians entering the intersection, or vehicles crossing in front of you. Ma'am, this is an obvious safety issue. With your legislation, we can direct the NHTSA to regulate turn-signal frequency. Why should innocent drivers be distracted by over-eager turn-signals? By requiring car makers to set a particular frequency for their cars' turn signals, we can save lives. I look forward to a safer America.

Sincerely yours,

Philip