Right-of-Way: The Right Way (?)

Having dropped off a coat and shirt at the dry cleaners (in the mini-mall that also houses Formal Notice tux rental, Pizza Hut and "Mexican Foo"--a missing "d" in the sign)*, I exited the parking lot and turned right onto Bloomfield (heading north), and proceeded slowly through the Bloomfield/Del Amo intersection.

Out of (almost) nowhere, this white Camery-looking vehicle [my make/model recognition is not very reliable, but it looked Camery-esque] turns left in front of me! My very visceral response was to step on the breaks and honk--but initially I decided on only the former.

In these quasi-life-or-death moments (and it wasn't even "quasi", because we were both driving fairly slowly), time seems to move in slow motion, or my brain is zooming along at Mach 4--or, in a happy, synergistic coincidence, both. This provided (what seemed to me) an extraordinary length of time to excogitate the advantages and drawbacks of using my horn.

This remarkable speed of thought was possible because my mental processes were being performed without the impediments of subject-verb agreement, conjugation, word order or syntactical arrangement--indeed, without the restraints of language at all. My cognition was not in words, but in pure thought: wordless perception, deliberation, and decision. Nonetheless, I can retroactively use the medium of language to give voice to my unarticulated thoughts:

What is that woman in the white car doing? Is that a handicapped parking permit hanging from her rear-view? Handicapped or not, she shouldn't be allowed to drive if she poses a hazard to drivers around her. I should honk to warn her--I'm supposed to honk to prevent an accident. It will also alert her to the fact that she is in the wrong. Wait, maybe I'm in the wrong: did the the light change? [I take one last quick glance at the traffic signal, and see that I still have a green.] No! Clearly I have the right-of-way; she should NOT have turned left. [At this point I lay on the horn.] Maybe it wasn't necessary to honk, since I was going slowly enough to have avoided an accident without honking.

At this point, her car has finished it's turn, and I slip back into using language to process information and develop my judgments. That driver looks remarkably like Linda's mother; I wonder how Linda's mom is doing now--she's back from her trip. I really should blog about this incident. My honking was unnecessary, but hopefully it startled her, and she'll be more careful next time. Hopefully this will be an interesting blog entry. Maybe she didn't realize I would come through the intersection, because I had just exited the parking lot, so my car wasn't in the street when she began her left turn. She's still at fault, because the person making the left turn is always at fault.

From the California Dept. of Motor Vehicles website:
Use Your Horn
When necessary to avoid accidents. Don't honk at other times.
Don't Use Your Horn
If slowing or stopping your car will prevent an accident. It's safer to use the brakes than honk the horn.
To show other drivers that they made a mistake. Your honking may cause them to make more mistakes.
Because you are angry or upset.

I see that I did not meet the "Use Your Horn" prerequisite per se; additionally, I used three of the "Don't Use Your Horn" criteria to justify my honking. If you drive a white Camery-like vehicle, you are a physically challenged Asian female, and a sporty, "seaside pearl" Prius honked at you on Wednesday at the Del Amo/Bloomfield intersection, I apologize.

*Editor's note: It was a little difficult to describe this situation accurately without so many details. I apologize to my readership who are unfamiliar with the particular minutiae of the Cerritos cityscape with which this entry is concerned.