Driving courtesy seems to be lost

I moved to this lovely city, county and state last year and have been so happy that I did every day since. My driving is mainly just in Thurston County, so my next question obviously cannot apply to the entire state. That question being: “Why do so many local drivers either not use their turn signals or wait until they are just about to make the turn before indicating so?” My unofficial count tells me that at least over 50 percent of these drivers fall into that category.

I have been driving for over 50 years, but the basic instructions given to me in Drivers Ed in high school included: When anticipating a turn coming up ahead, first engage your turn signal to warn any drivers especially behind you, but also coming towards you of your impending action. Then you start to engage the brake to slow down for the turn, not the opposite! This is not only a common courtesy towards your fellow road warriors but also a safety action for all of us. Although it is a good practice to always doing this sequence of actions, I can understand that if no one is behind you and also not coming your way, it might not seem necessary. By only hitting your brakes, drivers behind you have no idea why you’re doing that and it may cause them to suddenly hit their own brakes, creating an unsafe situation behind them. This is at least my interpretation of driving safely.