Originally published at: The turn signals on these new Minis are insanely stupid | Boing Boing
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Maybe they make more sense when driving in the left side of the road?
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That’s going to cause accidents. Bad choice, bad response.
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(Insert joke here about BMW drivers never using their turn signals anyway.)
I’d also imagine this is likely a NA-centric issue as most of the world requires amber turn signals.
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“Mini has not heard any concerns from customers regarding the rear turn indicators,”
Survival of the fittest. Those who don’t get it are all dead and can’t complain.
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It’s not their customers who have the issue. Their customers are not relying on the turn signals to tell them where they are about to go. It’s all the other drivers seeing the arrows and [not surprisingly] interpreting them as an indication of what direction their customer is about to go.
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So, if a driver sees this car from the read in the left hand turn lane, can see the full view of the car, and the left turn signal is blinking, it makes sense for their brain to parse out that the car is, in fact, turning left. Sure, that makes sense. However the fact that this stupid light has an arrow pointing the other direction is going to add some extra processing requirements for the approaching driver’s brain to parse that information. Adding complexity to the driving process, especially when you add this to other drivers, is never a good thing!
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yeah. and honestly, not just from misinterpreting the arrows but also from the extra cognitive work to process what it means
it’s like those tests where the word for a color is written with a different color… you’ve got to think for a second
and thinking does not improve reaction times
[ eep: i guess i owe @awfulhorrid a non-alcoholic carbonated beverage of their choice ]
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stereotyping drivers is hilarious!!
These must be for the small niche of people who have a blinker that signals one way - and end up going the other.
Seriously though - as someone who sat though 5 years of design classes, I can’t even imagine how much one must love their own farts to think this was a good user design choice.
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Having seen these in wild, it never occurred to me to see them as an arrow. Not good at semiotics, clearly. All they need to do is use the other halves of the Union flags and the problem goes away.
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So here I am in a 6-lane highway on the right rear of a Mini signaling to change into my lane. I can see the signal on the right hand side but have to turn my head to look sharply to the left to see the light that’s signaling so I don’t see the car about to cut me off.
Do these Yahoos ever think about scenarios like this?
Besides which, I’m pretty sure that US vehicle codes are detailed enough that regardless of cute shapes the right-turn signal is required to be on the right-hand side and likewise left. Surely somebody is getting handed equipment citations and required to fix the damned things – which can’t be cheap, assuming it’s even possible.
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One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was buying a 2006 Mini Cooper S with John Cooper Works.
For the first 20K miles, it was a DREAM! I got about 425 miles on a 15 gallon tank of gas, had the standard transmission I LOVE and the pep that I appreciate.
While it also had many features I loved compared with the 2016 Ford Fiesta ST I got to replace it - like a side sun visor and Low/Medium/High seat warmers - I won’t miss the oil change trips that ALWAYS turned into $900 worth of SOMETHING wrong. On top of that, he sucked expensive synthetic oil like a beater with 200K miles since about 24K miles.
Mr. Bean is the ONLY car I ever traded in with less than about 120K miles on him - and that includes a 1977 Chevy Caprice Classic. At 84K miles, his clutch went, he needed new run-flat tires and the check engine light came on. I had the clutch replaced and thanked my lucky stars that the check engine light stayed off as the Ford dealership test drove him.
The Mini dealership paid no attention to my insistence that a car with less than 100K miles on it shouldn’t be sucking oil. At the time, Virginia’s lemon law had an 18K mile cutoff, so I didn’t delve further into the option of pursuing redress under the lemon law.
Bottom line: I will NEVER purchase another BMW product.
This turn signal is the icing on the cake of how tone-deaf BMW is.
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This is exactly right. I saw one of these in the wild, and while it caused me only 1/2 a moment of reflection, it is the first time in 40 years of driving that a turn signal caused me ANY need for reflection. As another poster said, bad choice, bad response.
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Dear Wife had a money hungry BMW 2008 325i Sport, it never met a gas station it didn’t like. Easy $1000 every time it was serviced. Final straw was transmission went and the price tag was a down payment for a house. Got 4K in a trade in and never looked back. Never again BMW!
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I will be interested in the USA’s NHTSA opinion. I suspect it might be different than Mini’s once someone brings it to their attention.
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There’s a place for playful iconography, and it’s not in critical safety features.
Also, as a Brit, this might cause me dangerous eye rolling behind the wheel.
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there should be no trouble at all for a driver to understand
Oh, for fuck’s sake. You don’t want drivers having to “figure things out” if at all possible - you want things to be obvious enough that they don’t have to think about it at all. That’s basic safety.
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