Turn signals

So the other day this thing that happens to me more often than it should happened again. I used to think it was always the other guy's fault but, well, when the same problem keeps repeating a reasonable person starts to wonder if it might not not be the other guy, but instead... Several months ago V** suggested it was probably me.

I am driving down the road. I am coming upon a light. I plan to turn right at the light. There is an emerging right turn only lane before the light. I put on my turn signal & slide into this lane. I am nearly sideswiped by the guy pulling out of the parking lot who apparently thought my turn signal meant I was turning into same lot.

So I am asking: is it me?

I get a lot of signals crossed when I drive. The most frequent is the ubiquitous (down here) confederate flag. I guess some people see it as a way to identify comrades-in-arms...? I find it is a useful way to spot the stoopid people. That's right: if you have a confederate flag anywhere on your vehicle I take whatever I thought your intelligence might have been & cut it right in half. & like it or not, other measures of applied intelligence (high school diplomas for example) are bearing me out. I have lived well below the Mason-Dixon line for 15+ years & I have never, NEVER met a college graduate with such a sticker. On the flip side, the high school dropouts are leading the pack by a margin of 3:1. Yes, I do live in a rural community but the fact it backs up to the largest university in the state should balance that out, right?

In another example, I have a Vote No on 2 sticker on the back of my truck. For those of you who do not know, Florida voted Yes on 2 & it passed, but the sticker is still there. I would take it down, after all when the next campaign comes it will be repeal 2 or whatever, but I am having too much fun watching other people respond to it. At least once a month someone points to my sticker & says the votes are counted, my side lost & I should just get over it. Often these people have McCain/Palin stickers on their own vehicles.

My favorite 'turn signal' though will always be the giant testicles that some men hang from their trailer hitches; I have no hard data but I am pretty sure women do not do this. Usually these charming 'little dick' indicators are made of metal, but there was a ?rubber?plastic? very lifelike anyway pair that was always parked in our local grocery store lot. It was there so often I had kind of figured the truck belonged to an employee & so, apparently did some other people.

I do not spend a lot of my time worrying about how children are impacted by well, anything at all, but I know a lot of people do. I learned that some parents (I am guessing mothers) had complained to the grocery store about this truck (why naked girl silhouettes on mud flaps-another local favorite- were not equally objectionable I never did figure out, but people-&-their-objections are often a mystery to me).

The short version is that despite complaints the store said there was not anything they could do about it, really. So someone took those balls into (her) own hands. I walked out of the store, past same truck & the offending appendages had been neatly sliced from the hitch. Yup, that truck done got hisself gelded.

I seem to have run myself to the end of this particular line & I am still no closer to answering my original questions (is it me?) & now I have another: is it OKay for someone to remove an offending "message" from another persons car?