The Hazard of it All

The hazard warning button- that activates both blinkers - is typically used to indicate that a vehicle is in some sort of distress or that caution must be used by traffic around the vehicle. Examples of when hazard warning lights might be used is when there's a flat and the vehicle is pulled over to the side or if it's pouring so heavily that visibility is severely reduced.

Though hazard warning lights employ blinkers, they are in no way used to indicate a turn in direction - well, or so I thought. I've seen a noticeably growing and worrying trend here in India where people  turn on the hazard warning lights as they approach an intersection to indicate that they're going straight! If flashing the right blinker means that a person's turning right and turning on the left one means that they're hanging a left, does using both indicators means they're going right and left? No. So does this means they're headed straight, then? Again, no. (But, um, straight into trouble? Possibly, yes.) Perhaps the vehicle directly behind or in front of them can see both blinkers flashing - but that would still be sending a "mixed signal" (pun intended). Also, what if someone on the right side of the road sees the right indicator flashing and assumes that vehicle's turning in this direction? And someone on the left sees only the left indicator and assumes they're going this way? Clearly this is dangerous. The hazard warning button is typically placed in the center console of a vehicle so that it's more accessible to all passengers - and not with the gauge cluster that's conveniently located near the steering wheel and to the driver.

So, it'd be great if the use of hazard warning lights is limited to signaling a hazard - else it might leave people hazarding a guess on the direction of the vehicle.