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Comment by internet101010 | Hacker News Reader

BMW turn signals used to work differently until I think the mid-2010s. You would press down to turn on the left signal, it would revert back to the middle, then you would press down again to turn it off.

People would turn on the signal and then accidentally turn on the opposite signal when trying to turn it off. So a lot of people stopped using them.

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I have this same problem with cars like the Honda Fit, where you can't immediately abort a signal because the minimum number of blinks allowed by the system is greater than 1. Far longer than it takes to realise you were about to turn too soon, or attempt a merge at a wrong exit.

The excessive minimum-blinks usually causes me to try moving the lever farther or jiggle it because "off" didn't seem to mean __off__, with the frequent result that the opposite side's turn signal engages, probably confusing other drivers.

Supposedly, this is a Feature, so that a brief flick of the control allows sending a preset number of blinks to other drivers. Myself, I think "off" should mean OFF.

Yup, I remember when I got a loaner car that had those new momentary switches and I couldn't believe how terrible they were. What made it all the more baffling/disappointing was that earlier BMWs had some of the nicest turn signal switches available that were so satisfying to use.

I test drove a 1 series in 2018 and it still worked like that

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