Flashers or no Flashers?

Yeah, I think you can successfully argue that a truck moving more than 30-40 mph under the speed limit is warning of a "hazard in the roadway" as permitted in that regulation If you're not in a designated climbing lane with a solid line to your left, like climbing out of Coachella on 10 EB where it's only two lanes with no climbing lane.

 

This I agree with. I will turn them on when we are rolling along along and traffic is STOPPED or STOPPING ahead of me, but once the vehicles behind me have caught up, I'll turn them off.

 

Last week, southbound I-5, climbing one of the hills in Southern Oregon (Sexton I believe) I was passing a slower truck that was driving on the shoulder as per local custom. The road has a slight curve to the right, he was pulling a reefer and I couldn't see around him. So when his turn signals suddenly start blinking, I assume someone is stopped on the hill in front of him, or there's an even slower truck up there and he needs to move over. I put my left signal on and start trying to crowd over into the left lane. When I got a little further past him I could see there was nothing there, he just decided to turn his flashers on.

IMHO they are called "emergency flashers" for a reason. If it's not an emergency, don't use them. Anybody that doesn't know that big trucks go slow up steep hills shouldn't be driving to begin with. When you use your flashers in routine situations you diminish their effectiveness in non-routine ones.

 

Unfortunately we live in a world that those people are free to drive in and the difference between paying multi million dollar lawsuit and settling for peanuts may be as simple as using your flashers.

As we all know, stupid people get the best lawyers.

 

25251 (a)(3)
To warn other motorists of accidents or hazards on a roadway...

Perfectly legal. Cali, for the most part, quit giving tickets for that back in the 80's-90's.

 

No reason to go hmm. Haven't you been around long enough to know that truckers will never all agree on anything? It's the way it is.

As others have stated, you need to use your own judgement, just like many other things.

One poster pointed out that the use of flashers on a moving vehicle is against the California Vehicle Code. Yes, it is. And it really surprises me to see that they have never seen fit to change the law. As far as practicality goes, I've never seen it enforced, or known it to be enforced about a slow moving truck going up a grade. However, it certainly could be. Again, you have to use your own judgement.

 

I have always known them to be called, and even AAA defines them as, "hazard lights". To me, a slow moving vehicle is a hazard. It is in fact the reason Pennsylvania now requires Amish buggies to have a battery and amber flashers when they are on a public roadway instead of just the slow moving vehicle triangle they used to use.

Agree 100%.

 

http://drivinglaws.aaa.com/laws/hazard-light-use/

 

Now that I think about it, by your reasoning, we shouldn't be using them in truckstops or customer loading docks when we are backing up either, since those aren't emergency situations.

 

I use them if the situation dictates, when backing, in an emergency, when I'm forced to go slower than the flow of traffic (uphill or downhill), in a breakdown situation. As others have said, they are there for the purpose of "so you see me"