Is the turn-signal indicator headed toward extinction...

Is the turn-signal indicator headed toward extinction in the manner of such outmoded automotive features as the rumble seat, curb feelers and wind-wing windows?

Sometimes it seems that way, judging from the number of Southland motorists who refuse to signal, either because (1) they’re too lazy, (2) they’re too occupied with shaving or doing their nails, or (3) they fear that the driver in the next lane will speed up to prevent them from moving over.

Or (4) all of the above.

Stuart Cannold of Palmdale notes that, in lieu of using the turn signal, many drivers now stare “over their shoulders at you when they want to come into your lane. It’s as though you’re supposed to be a mind reader.”

What’s worse, the starer often seems angry when the stared-at fails to slow down to allow the maneuver.

Cannold suggests that, to prevent confusion, “a driver who wants to make a lane change should at least twitch his nose, either to the left or the right, depending on the direction he wants to go.”

If nothing else, Cannold’s suggestion might reduce the number of nicked faces and smudged nails on the freeway.

No sooner did we write this than we received a report from colleague Nikki Finke of a man playing the trumpet while driving down the Ventura Freeway. “You could see him puffing his cheeks out,” she said. Perhaps the driver had thought of a new way to announce a lane change. We should all take the lead of Channing Clark of Burbank. “I am alert, cautious,” he said in a note with the accompanying photo. It was taken at the Getty Museum in Pacific Palisades.

Yes, that’s the same Getty that identifies itself as a Malibu resident.

This annoys some Palisadians, just as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s identification with Pasadena annoys neighboring La Canada Flintridge, JPL’s real home. (Angelenos are somewhat less upset that the Beverly Hills Gun Club really lies within their city.)

Palisades historian Betty Lou Young wrote that the incorrect Malibu designation was “Getty’s wish.” (And his wishes were usually obeyed.)

“Presumably it had better name recognition, not to mention cachet and panache,” wrote Andy Kelly, a UCLA English professor, in the Palisadian-Post. Kelly, a Palisadian, consulted with the L.A. City Bureau of Engineering and found that the entire museum is in the Palisades portion of L.A.

Kelly adds that he’s even heard people say that the Gladstone’s for Fish restaurant, at the foot of Sunset Boulevard, is in Malibu.

“Where will it end?” he asks. “Pali High, Malibu? This creeping Malibuism must stop.”

miscelLAny:

Naturalist John Muir, gunfighter Wyatt Earp, athlete Jim Thorpe, columnist Walter Winchell and violinist Jascha Heifetz all died in L.A.