Use Your Turn Signal

by Conroy

My girlfriend strongly encouraged me to write a post about one of my pet peeves: the many drivers ­– other drivers – who don’t use their car’s turn signals. Does this exasperate you as much as it does me? We’ve all been there, you’re driving along a busy road and the brake lights of the car in front of you flash bright red, and the car begins to slow, and you’re confused because there’s no reason you can see to be slowing down. Is there something wrong with their car? Is there debris in the road? Is there an accident ahead? No wait, the car isn’t going to, yes, it’s turning into a driveway. Of course you could have rear-ended the car because the driver just abruptly slowed to a virtual stop in the road with no warning whatsoever to you about what was going on. They didn’t use their turn signal. You know, the standard issue, easily accessible, simple-to-use, installed-for-a-clear-purpose turn signal. The turn signal designed specifically to alert other drivers (like you) about turns and lane changes. The turn signal whose purpose is to increase the safe operation of your car and to make the roads safer and operate better for everyone. The turn signal…wait, I’ve already started ranting.

I think her encouragement mostly stems from a hope that by writing about it I’ll stop preaching to her and berating other drivers (not that they know it), every time I see someone not use their turn signal, which seems like multiple times every single day. Lately I’ve been honking at drivers in front of me who fail to use their signals¹. It’s my attempt to shame them, but I won’t do that to my readers, so I’ll just proffer some advice, use your turn signal. But if you need more encouragement, read on.

The Lazy, the Selfish, and the Wrong
I’ve given this issue some thought and I’ve identified three possible reasons why people fail to use their signals: (1) laziness, (2) an intellectual or philosophical position that finds the use of turn signals unnecessary, and (3) a selfishness that borders on contempt for everyone else on the road. None of these reasons is justifiable and all counterarguments in support of them are untenable, but let’s take them one at a time.

Is this action really so hard?

First laziness. You’re driving along and you approach an intersection where you’re going to turn left. There’s a car behind you. But you decide it’s too much trouble to shift your left arm² a few inches to the turn signal shaft and apply a downward flick of the fingers to engage the left turn signal. An action that takes about one second and requires essentially zero energy³. You decide that the no-time-zero-effort action is still too much for you. You’d rather risk getting in an accident, endangering your safety and property (not to mention that of the driver and vehicle behind you) by not warning the driver behind that you’ll be stopping to turn. No, don’t be lame, use your turn signal.

I suppose one could take a position that turn signals are often unnecessary and therefore can go unused. After all, why do you, a competent driver, need to alert other drivers that you’ll be changing lanes on the highway? If there’s a gap between vehicles you’ll take it. If you’re going to make a turn, you’ll check your rearview mirror and slow gradually (and you might even shift slightly toward the side of the road in the direction of your turn to give the vehicles behind you some room to pass). Other drivers don’t need to know every little move you’re going to make, you’ll take care of your driving and they can take care of theirs. Wrong. We’re all using the roads together; driving is a social behavior. Turn signals are meant to convey information to all of the other drivers about what you’re going to do. I’m sure you’ve seen two drivers try and simultaneously merge into a highway lane, one from the left and one from the right, and then one or both suddenly swerve or brake to avoid a high-speed sideswipe collision.  Why does this happen? Because neither driver had their turn signal on, and so neither one knew that the other driver was planning to merge.

It’s foolishness to assume that other drivers are going to intuit or anticipate your driving behavior. It’s your job as a driver to do everything in your power to make sure everyone else knows what you’re planning to do, including and especially turning or changing lanes. Use your turn signal. And even if the road is empty with not another car for hundreds of yards, use your turn signal anyway⁴. Make it a habit. You stop at a red light or stop sign⁵ in the middle of the night for the same reason, so you’ll be conditioned to stop when traffic is very heavy. It’s same reason you put on your seatbelt no matter how short a trip or how slow you’ll be driving. Engage your turn signal whenever you merge or turn, period.

Finally, there’s that selfishness that leads drivers to totally ignore everyone else. You’re driving in your car, in your own world, your car cocoon oblivious or dismissive of everything and everyone else around you. The drivers of others cars are mere abstractions, unknown and barely glimpsed, and therefore they can be ignored. You can talk on the phone or text or fiddle with the radio and if you don’t have a hand free for the turn signal, so be it. If the other cars (and the people in them) aren’t important enough to consider then why bother with the turn signal? You’ve got your own worries, your own places to get to, and your own things to get done. All of the other drivers on the road are just obstacles in your way. There’s no chance that any one of them has anywhere equally important to be or get done, or that their destination is even more important and their timetable even more pressing than yours (that you might be in their way). Get over yourself, put the phone down, pay attention to the road, and engage other drivers on equal terms. Use your turn signal.

The decision-making (or lack thereof), the attitude, the general disregard that leads people to not use their turn signals can be defined by one word, it’s antisocial. You may not be a bad person, but if you fail to use your turn signal you are engaging in bad behavior. If a mark of maturity and wisdom is the ability to empathize and see the world from another’s perspective, then there’s no reason not do the mature, the safe, the smart thing. So please, be an adult and use your turn signal.

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NOTES:

1. A practice that I’m sure my girlfriend doesn’t always appreciate. Though she agrees about this whole failure-to-use-the-turn-signal issue.

2. If you drive on the right side of the road like in the U.S.

3. And I suppose you could suggest that inertia, Newton’s law that an object a rest (your arm in this case, and maybe your brain) will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force, comes into play. And that there is an effort to move your hand and engage the turn signal and it doesn’t matter how easy it is, it only matters that an action is required, and it’s the fact of the action and not the amount of energy required that is the key. Easy or hard an action is an action and therefore engaging the turn signal is much more of an effort than I’m giving credit for being. To which I’ll counter that if your energetic enough to make that argument you’re certainly energetic enough to use your turn signal. So use your turn signal and leave Newton out of it.

4. And this applies to other vehicle-operating behaviors like turning on your headlights. It doesn’t matter if you have the night vision of a cat and even in deep twilight can see the vague outlines of the road and cars. What matters is that the normal vision humans driving other cars may not be able to see you. So turn on your headlights for them. Everyone’s safety, yours included, will be enhanced.

5. Assuming of course that you always stop at stop signs, which you should no matter how silly it may seem when no other car is at or approaching the intersection. Heck if you need any reason, do it to avoid getting a ticket from the police officer who you know is just waiting, hidden, to catch you running a stop sign so they can cite you and ruin your day.

Roger Federer and the 2012 Tennis Season

by Conroy

Roger Federer victorious at Wimbledon for the seventh time

Roger Federer collapsed awkwardly to the grass as Andy Murray’s backhand passing shot, the last stroke of the 2012 Wimbledon Championships, fell wide of the sideline. The Centre Court crowd cheered in appreciation as they watched the Swiss champion defeat their local hope¹. Federer had won another Wimbledon title, his seventh, had won another grand slam tournament, his 17^th, and reclaimed the number 1 ranking (all records). His fall to the turf was just about the only ungraceful step he took all day. His tennis was, by any measure, a sublime, vintage display as he outplayed an in-form Murray (and subdued the wildly expectant and partisan British audience) to win the competitive match 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4. With this latest win he is once again the king of tennis, the mighty Roger Federer, the greatest player of all time.

Perhaps no two points encapsulate just how well Federer played then the two points that ended the second set. The score is 5-6, 30-30 with Murray, leading the match after having won a close first set, serving to take the second set to a tiebreaker. The players engage in a neutral baseline rally before Federer rips an inside-out forehand off a short mid-court ball deep into Murray’s backhand corner. Murray plays a smart soft backhand up the line but Federer has anticipated it and streaks to cut the ball off at the service line, hitting a great drop volley that Murray, despite all his speed, can barely reach and pushes long of the baseline. Now the score is 30-40, set point. Again the players engage in a baseline rally until Federer hits a short angled forehand to Murray’s forehand sideline. Murray is forced to lunge for the ball hitting it back to Federer who then rips a backhand crosscourt to Murray’s backhand corner. The Scot scrambles madly to get to the ball, but Federer has anticipated a weak crosscourt reply and is already sprinting toward the net, where he intercepts the ball near the service line and plays one of the most exquisite drop volleys you’ll ever see, the ball landing close to the net and literally bouncing low and sideways off the turf, and making its second bounce (and stopping cold) before the sprinting Murray can reach it. The set was Federer’s and from then on the outcome of the match was never in doubt. These points highlight what Federer tennis is all about, variety, sharp ball striking, point construction and anticipation, and jaw-dropping shot making (I let out an audible gasp on seeing that set point). Match highlights (including these two points) can be viewed here.

Coming into the 2012 tennis season few projected the renaissance of Roger Federer. The whispers were of a fading champion whose time of winning had passed. When I last wrote about tennis before the major clay court tournaments leading into the French Open (Roland Garros), I suggested three likely outcomes as the tour went through the heart of the season from the European clay-court spring through the U.S. Open in September. My least likely outcome (of three possible) was Federer regaining the number 1 ranking. So how did he do it and where does that leave his main (and recently dominant) rivals Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal? And what about the rest of the men’s field?

2012 from Australia to Wimbledon
2012 has been a highly competitive year – between the three men that continue to dominate tennis. And unlike last year, when the story was repeatedly Novak Djokovic besting Rafael Nadal, 2012 has seen Federer elbow his way back into the mix. Compare the major tournament winners from the last two years:

Tournament	2011		2012
	Winner	Finalist	Winner	Finalist
Australian Open	Novak Djokovic	Andy Murray	Djokovic	Rafael Nadal
Indian Wells	Djokovic	Nadal	Roger Federer	John Isner
Miami	Djokovic	Nadal	Djokovic	Murray
Monte Carlo	Nadal	David Ferrer	Nadal	Djokovic
Madrid	Djokovic	Nadal	Federer	Tomas Berdych
Rome	Djokovic	Nadal	Nadal	Djokovic
Roland Garros	Nadal	Federer	Nadal	Djokovic
Wimbledon	Djokovic	Nadal	Federer	Murray

Federer stated after his Wimbledon win that after last year's disappointing losses he was determined to take a more offensive approach into his matches with Djokovic and Nadal. That’s been clear tactic in recent matches. Unfortunately, that approach is blunted on slow clay, but on hard courts, especially fast hard courts, and grass, it is a winning strategy. So in the table above we see Federer’s name on the winner’s line in several big tournaments in 2012 where he was absent in 2011 (including the novel, fast, and apparently very slippery blue clay featured this year - for the first and last time - in Madrid). (What this table also shows is that no other man has been able to break through and win a big tournament. 2012 has been competitive amongst the “Big 3”, but the field still lags behind. Through Wimbledon, Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic have won 30 of the last 31 grand slam titles².)

Nadal playing - and beating - Djokovic at Roland Garros

It’s also clear the Novak Djokovic has been less consistent this year than last. Last year he was winning on all surfaces, this year he hasn’t. That led to a major shift that was all the talk in the tennis world before Wimbledon, Rafael Nadal getting the better of Djokovic on the European clay courts, changing the dynamic from last year and positioning the Spaniard for greater success in 2012, more grand slams, and the number 1 ranking. The clay courts in Paris played very slow this year, conditions perfect for Nadal and his impenetrable clay court defense. He sliced through his draw (seven doomed men as Pete Bodo labeled them) and despite a temporary hiccup in the final against Djokovic³ he emphatically won his 11^th grand slam. The title was his record seventh at Roland Garros, and was correctly hailed as a historic accomplishment, leaving no one in doubt that Nadal is the greatest clay court player in history. Most pundits picked him to carry his success onto grass and claim another Wimbledon title. Instead, and as proof that all glory is fleeting, he was famously upset by unknown Lukas Rosol in the second round (it’s worth watching Rosol’s unbelievable performance⁴, see highlights here). Nadal’s 2012 was not going to be a repeat of his 2010 or even 2008.

Roger Federer nearly lost the next day as he had to fight back from two sets down to beat journeyman Julien Benneteau in the third round. He was two points from defeat on five separate occasions. A few points here and there make all the difference. He fought through back issues in his next match. But he found his best form and full fitness for the last three matches, including an impressive win over defending champion Djokovic in the semi-finals. The Wimbledon triumph was a culmination of Federer’s resurgence. Last year he repeatedly lost to Nadal and Djokovic (1-7 through the U.S. Open), but this year he hasn’t (2-3 so far and 2-1 on hard courts and grass), including beating Nadal on the way to the Indian Wells title. The balance of power in tennis rests on who wins and loses a handful of key matches. This year Federer has won some of the matches that last year he lost. Last year he was clearly number 3, this year the top 3 have been much closer.

Just consider how each man won at this year’s grand slams: Djokovic beat Nadal to win in Australia, Nadal beat Djokovic to win at Roland Garros, and Federer beat Djokovic to win Wimbledon. If any of these results were different, then the rankings and storylines would be too.

2012 After Wimbledon
So what might we expect for the rest of the season? I don’t make predictions but I feel confident in writing that the remainder of the 2012 tennis season will continue to be dominated by Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal. There is little evidence to suggest otherwise. They’ve won every big tournament so far and until someone else breaks up their hegemony (which we’ve been waiting for years to happen) there’s little reason to think they won’t continue to do so. So focusing on them, let’s first consider in a little more detail what has happened so far this year. Here are their season records through Wimbledon:

Sinking Cities

by Conroy

Baltimore flooded by Hurricane Isabel

Are America’s coastal cities facing a losing battle against the sea? Consider these facts from cities all along the U.S. East Coast: In Galveston, Texas, a long sea wall shields the city from the Gulf of Mexico. The sea wall worked for a century, but in 2008 the storm surge from Hurricane Ike overtopped the wall and flooded the adjacent streets. In the early 1980s Miami-Dade County spent $50 million to rebuild the eroding shore line of Miami Beach. Similar projects, officially termed “beach nourishment”, are common all along the Atlantic seaboard¹. In some precariously narrow sections of Hatteras Island, North Carolina, far off the mainland in the state’s Outer Banks, sand bags line both sides of the state route 12 to keep the Atlantic on one side and Pamlico Sound on the other from splitting the island. Back in 2003 when Hurricane Isabel roared up the East Coast, the island was split and an emergency project was required to stop the erosion and prevent the split from becoming permanent. Hurricane Isabel continued its movement up the East Coast flooding coastal areas of Virginia and as it moved inland its powerful storm surge funneled water up the Chesapeake Bay causing widespread flooding in coastal Maryland, and putting Baltimore, including downtown, under several feet of water. The flooding even extended far up the tidal Potomac to Washington, D.C. In 2011, the storm surge from Hurricane Irene flooded parts of Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. Further north, Nantucket Island off of Cape Cod is literally eroding into the sea, taking pricey homes with it.

As these examples above demonstrate, being next to the sea has its dangers, and fighting the long-term trend of beach erosion and flooding are never-ending expensive battles. This situation is only going to get worse if a planet-wide trend continues: rising sea levels. Consider that just along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Jacksonville, Miami and Southeast Florida, Tampa Bay, and New Orleans are situated at least in part at sea level. And it’s not just major metropolitan areas that are at risk, the low-lying shores of the Houston shipping channel, just inland from Galveston, are home to one of the nation’s largest ports and lined with the nation’s largest concentration of petroleum refining plants. Are all of these areas destined to be inundated over the next century?

Sea Levels Rising
Of course the first thing that has to be answered is: Are sea levels actually rising? And to answer that, we need to understand what sea level is. Sea level is harder to define than it may seem because of course the flowing, undulating sea never seems to have one level. However, the most basic definition is the average surface elevation of the oceans when surface fluctuations, like high and low tides are averaged out. This seems like a reasonable definition but it nevertheless can be hard to pin down. Note that the average sea level of the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal is nearly eight inches lower than at the Pacific end. Still, it’s fair to say that there is a local “sea level” for all places where land meets tidal water. Historically these levels have been measured from set gauges on land, and more recently satellites have been used to observe global sea levels.

The results of these measures seem to confirm that sea levels are indeed rising all over the world. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)², global sea levels have been rising by about 1.8 millimeters per year (mm/yr.). If this estimate is in any way accurate, and indicative of a continuing trend (and not a rate that may slow or even reverse in the near future), there’s probably no need for immediate panic. At this rate it would take about 555 years for global sea levels to rise by one meter or about 170 years to rise one foot. This is hardly a catastrophic rate of increase. However, rising sea levels, whatever the rate, do pose an obvious risk to coastal areas. And many estimates, including those by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), put the annual sea level rise much higher than the IPCC.

But what causes sea level to change? On geologic timescales, ocean bottom elevations and plate tectonics play major roles. These occur so slowly that they don’t affect us. More important are short term causes like tides, onshore winds, atmospheric pressure, surface water temperatures, evaporation, precipitation, river runoff, and in extreme cases major storm surges and tsunamis. On the longer term sea levels can change because glaciers and ice caps shrink or expand. In the first case, melt water is freed from the land and adds to the volume in the sea. In the latter case, water is trapped in ice and global sea levels drop. Another long term trend is changes in land elevation due to groundwater depletion, erosion, or general geological subsidence. But it’s the melting glaciers and ice caps that have gathered most attention in recent decades, the result, many will claim, of rising global temperatures, which is in turn the result of man-made effects to the environment.

Melt water on the Greenland Ice Sheet

Man-made or natural, rising temperatures will melt snow and ice. If the entire Greenland Ice Cap were to melt, global sea levels could rise by as much as 24 feet. If the entire Antarctic Ice Cap were to melt global sea levels would rise by 200 feet. These are extremely remote possibilities, Greenland and Antarctica are really cold places and it would take many thousands of years for them to melt. And Arctic sea ice melting would have a negligible effect on sea levels because these ice packs are already floating on the sea. More likely is increased melting of ice on the periphery of Greenland and Antarctica, which could still result in several feet of sea level rise. Also, if sea surface temperatures increase, water density decreases and its volume increases. So higher sea temperatures result in higher sea levels irrespective of the contribution of more water (melted ice). It’s worth noting that global temperatures haven’t increased over the last dozen or so years, which is directly contrary to the predictions of climate models. If global temperatures do stabilize then sea water temperatures and ice cap/glacier melting may not be as significant an issue as many fear.

Now I don’t know if or how much global sea levels may be rising. Like all earth systems, the various components that affect sea level are complicated and combine in unexpected ways. For example, increasing global temperatures will lead to increased precipitation, which, if it falls in the polar regions like Antarctica, will actually increase the thickness of the ice caps and the amount of impounded water, which would lower global sea levels. However, higher temperatures should result in greater calving and icebergs breaking away from the subpolar regions, which would raise global sea levels. How might these two trends interact and which is greater?³ When you consider all of these components there has to be question of how measurements of these global trends can even be made and how accurate models of these global systems can be. Let alone what predictions for future developments are possible.

It’s also worth noting that many of the flooding examples cited at the beginning of this post were the result of major storms, which are not in themselves indicative of sea level rise. Never in my memory had Baltimore flooded from the sea like in 2003, and the Galveston sea wall had stopped all storms, including hurricanes, for a century. There’s plenty of room for debate about whether American cities face an impending crisis from rising sea levels.

Nevertheless, even if the global climate doesn’t warm appreciably over the next century, America’s coastal cities would be negligent to not prepare for rising sea levels and ever more frequent flooding. Sea levels appear to be rising slowing but consistently and this can’t be ignored. And as we consider coastal flooding, we should first turn from the U.S. East Coast to an ancient city on the Mediterranean.