On the "Right" Side?

I've seen another growing traffic trend in India that has me on tenterhooks. Consider the figure above that depicts a two-way road and on which driving occurs on the left-hand side. Assume that there's a vehicle in the spot marked by the blue arrow and that wants to take a right turn onto the road. It's reasonable to suppose that the driver of this vehicle will wait for the traffic to clear in the lane with the green up arrow and then join the lane with the green down arrow - as is indicated by the blue lines. Of course if there's traffic in the lane marked with the green up arrow, then the driver of the vehicle has to wait for this to clear before they make the turn. Right?

Wrong. What I've repeatedly seen - and this habit is growing exponentially popular - is quite exasperating. A large number of vehicles - most notoriously two-wheelers - follow the path taken by the red arrow and lines when taking the same right turn. In other words, rather than wait for the traffic in the lane marked by the green up arrow to clear, they come barreling down on the wrong side and then "merge" into the lane marked with the green down arrow when they see a chance. So, if you're happily cruising along in your lane, you have to watch out for oncoming traffic on both sides! It's very stressful. To make matters worse some people turn on their lights and continue heading up the wrong way - as if this gives them some royal right of way to continue on!

Waiting a few moments to make the turn correctly to ensure the safety of all involved doesn't seem too much of an ask. In this case, being on the right side is actually being on the wrong one.

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.