Blinker Usage When Turning

Layton Funk Wednesday, 12-3 PM

Abstract The answer I wished to find during this research was how many people actually used turn signals when turning. This would tell me the public opinion of the turn signal and if it is being used or just being ignored. The method of collecting data was simply observation for a few hours at different times of which cars making turns used blinkers. I found that barely over 75% of drivers use blinkers while turning. This is good, as 75% is a large majority of people that actually care to warn other drivers with their blinkers. I know now that blinkers are used often enough to matter to drivers. Introduction I thought of the question how many people actually use turn signals when turning on the road? while I was, in fact, driving. This came from an annoyance for people that neglect to use blinkers and I wanted to know how many people used them. My hypotheses included the percent ranges of people that used blinkers: 0 to 10, 10 to 25, 25 to 45, 45 to 55, 55 to 75, 75 to 90, and 90 to 100. All were possible but I believed a bit over half (i.e. 65-70%) of drivers used blinkers when driving. I found a study performed by the Society of Automotive Engineers that 75% of drivers used signals when turning.1 Results The only problem that I had was a bomb threat on The University of Texas on Friday the 14th delaying my observation by an hour.
Drivers Using/Disusing Signals

Used Signal Disused Signal Percent Used Discussion

Friday 14th 1 2 PM 43 13 76.79%

Friday 14th 5 6 PM 69 22 75.82%

Saturday 15th 12 1 PM 37 12 75.51%

Saturday 15th 5 6 PM 52 18 74.29

As shown in the table above, I got some very, very similar results every day (sorry for the informality, but it was crazy to me how similar they were). The final percentage of drivers that used their blinkers when turning was 75.602%, which eliminates all but one of my hypotheses, leaving the range of 75 to 90%, a huge

majority. I wasnt all that surprised with my results (other than how similar they were every time I collected data) and expected somewhere around 70% to use blinkers. I also performed a X2 test on the data using the expected result from the study I found. The expected is 75% so the p-value I got was almost exactly 1 (.996), which implies that my results are extremely similar to the expected results and not just an event of chance. To further clarify my findings I could take data from different intersections at different times and days. Materials and Methods I simply used a spiral notebook and pen to tally who used their signals and who did not for an hour using an alarm clock. I stood for an hour at a time watching the right hand lane of one side of the street tallying who used their blinker and who did not. References 1. Ponziani, R., "Turn Signal Usage Rate Results: A Comprehensive Field Study of 12,000 Observed Turning Vehicles," SAE Technical Paper 2012-01-0261, 2012, doi:10.4271/2012-01-0261.