June 03, 2005

Baker City Woman Breaks Turn Signal Negligence Record at 615 Miles

SACRAMENTO, CA - Retired Baker City schoolteacher Myrna DeFaness entered the record books for her driving performance last week. No, she's not the first woman to win the Daytona 500, nor did she break the land speed record. She inadvertently drove the farthest distance in history with her left turn signal continuously blinking: 615 miles.

FAMILY REUNION

An early widow, DeFaness struggled as a single mother during the 1980s and 90s. When her daughter Jeanie was accepted to Stanford University, DeFaness vowed to stay in close contact no matter how many miles separated them. Upon graduation, Jeanie got a job in the California State Legislature office as a law clerk. Her visits home to Baker City were frequent at first, but then the pressures of work and family kept her away from her mother. When Jeanie became pregnant with twins, DeFaness promised to come out and see them when they were ready to be born.

Last Friday, DeFaness got the call: Jeanie was having contractions. She hastily loaded her car, a 2001 Honda Accord, and began the southwestern journey. She knew she had probably forgotten a few things. What she didn't realize was that turning off her left turn signal was one of them.

TUNNEL VISION

With a full tank of gas, DeFaness entered Interstate 84 South at milepost 306, signaling to merge into traffic. The noise of the cars and trucks in the adjacent lanes, coupled with her single-minded desire to reach Sacramento as quickly as humanly (and legally) possible, caused her to forget that the signal was on.

She ignored the clicking of the indicator in the dashboard. She couldn't see the flashing green arrow.


The route of Myrna DeFaness' turn signal negligence.

FEW STOPS ALONG THE WAY

Myrna's trek was not nonstop. There were stops at truck stops, rest areas and motels. However, each and every time she turned off the car, the turn signal lever was still in the down position. And when the car was started again, the signal resumed blinking.

"I just had no idea that the darned thing was on," said DeFaness. "I must have confused a lot of drivers when I would turn right instead of left."

In most cars, the turn signal lever on the steering column is designed to switch off automatically when the car's direction is righted. In DeFaness' car, for unknown reasons, the return switch did not work during the trip. Subsequent tests in Sacramento revealed that the switch was working properly.

HELPFUL SUGGESTIONS UNHEEDED

Somewhere in DeFaness' subconscious mind, she acknowledges that she did know the signal was blinking. At more than one stop, helpful motorists explained to her that the amber light had not been shut off. "There was a nice kid who kept saying, 'Hey, lady, your blinker's on,' but all I kept thinking about was Jeanie and those babies. It just didn't sink in that I had the power to do something about my signal," DeFaness explains.

The drivers of several other nearby cars were ignored as well. Chris Jenkins, a blackjack dealer driving to work in Reno, Nev., pulled up next to DeFaness, honked the horn, and pointed to the left front corner of her car.

"She was just in her own little world, I guess," recalls Jenkins. "I tried all of the hand motions - the pointing finger, the blinking thing with the hand, I even mimicked the motion of moving the little switch."

"She just kind of glossed over and looked away."

Six hundred and fifteen miles after first merging into I-84 traffic, DeFaness needed to make a right turn into the parking lot of Sutter Memorial Hospital. "That's when I noticed that it was already blinking left," she says of the green indicator arrow in the dashboard. "I was relieved to finally make it to Jeanie, so I guess I finally got back to paying attention to things. I wondered how long the signal had been on, and realized it was when I got on to the freeway back home."

"How embarrassing."

According to the U.S. Dept. of Transportation and Guinness, the previous turn signal negligence record was 520.4 miles, set by Roger Delapse of Sarasota, Fla., who was driving his motor home to see his son, Porkchop, in an Atlanta, Georgia jail.

3 Letters to the editor:

At 6:27 PM, Blogger meagan wrote...

hilarity.

 
At 10:16 PM, Blogger meagan wrote...

Hey!!! I just noiced you have my blog in your sidebar. Ohhhh.... I am so honored!!

love meagan

 
At 6:32 PM, Blogger Jim wrote...

my sister drove 225 miles on a clear day with her wipers on, it was a new car and she didn't know how to turn them off (no, I don't know why she didn't just stop and ask someone). Jim

 

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