Trafficators/flippers: how old cars used to indicate

Closed trafficators sat in a recess, which could become gummed up with dirt, grime, polish and all manner of things, and they could be frozen stuck in winter. Water could seep into the aperture and (maybe because of this) the solenoids that worked the arms failed or jammed. Bulb life was not brilliant either, possibly because the trafficator arms opened and closed with a bit of a 'thwack'. Trafficators were also a pedestrian liability. They would suddenly pop out at head, throat or arm level and I understand that several people were injured by them.

Bryan Davis

My father said that if you turned the engine off before the trafficator had come in, it would stay sticking out and he had broken several by getting out and walking into them.

Mike Wheale

Trafficators were expensive to replace and broke frequently. I used everything from Araldite to sticking plasters to repair them - not very reliably.

Eric Webb

Some buses and lorries were fitted with trafficators which were usually somewhat larger than those on cars and vans. Some buses also had complimenting left and right pointing illuminated arrows on the rear, and these were often retained after the advent of flashing indicators.

Darren Kitson

Problems with hand signals while driving a car

My first car was a 1960 VW Beetle with trafficators, which, after use, I always had to lean out of the window and slap down again by hand because they refused to retract into their slots. This was easier on the driver's side of course. So if I didn't have a travelling companion to do the slapping-down on the nearside every time I turned left, I had to resort to hand signals, knowledge of which was mandatory for the driving test in those days.

Gareth Glyn

My father managed a farm in North Dorset owned by a Mr Hunt, an industrialist who made amongst other things the first Government approved car indicator. It was the one that had the retractable arm that protected from the side of the car as described above with the light inside the indicator made by Lucas. At the time, the indicator was widely known as The Hunt Safety Sign. The Ministry of Transport tested Hunt's sign on roads in Manchester and approved it, as it was considered to give the clearest yet intention of what the driver was about to do.

I understand that the simplest way to fit the new indicators in existing cars was to fix a black box containing the mechanism behind the front seats at high level. This black box carried the name Hunt Safety Sign marked on it at the time of construction. Perhaps one of the many motor museums still has an example attached to one of their older vehicles as I assume that the name was used on all the indicators made by Hunt.

In 1947, Mr Hunt suffered a heart attack and died on his farm. His factory had to be sold to pay for death duties, and I understand that Lucas bought his business and cancelled the manufacture of the Hunt Safety Sign in favour of the indicator we see on motor vehicles today.

John Buckrell

I reckon that the law allowing flashing indicators was probably around 1954. My reasoning is as follows:

My Dad had a 1954 Vauxhall Velox (Caribbean Blue metallic, blue and grey upholstery, RKT 918 if memory serves, which certainly had trafficator indicators. He replaced the car with a 1956 Cresta (black, brown leather seats SGN 334) which definitely had flashing indicators.

The changeover from trafficators to today's flashing indicators was a process.

As I recall, the 1955 Vauxhall models had flashing indicators by way of tricky wiring of the stop lights at the back, so that if you were braking both stop lights came on but if you were braking and indicating, only one brake light flashed while the other stayed lit. In 1956 the cars had separate amber flashers front and rear. 1957 saw a further change for the rear lamps: they were all incorporated into one enlarged unit, whilst a new grille helped tidy up the front.

Vauxhall did a rapid rewiring job and saved themselves the cost of trafficators for the price of a flasher unit, were criticised because the chosen quick fix was fairly unsatisfactory, improved things for 1956 but at the cost of extra lamps. It finally got sorted for 1957, only to have the 'E' Series replaced by the 'PA' series for 1958.

Christopher Jenkins

When trafficators were made obsolete on new vehicles by law at some point, I remember, as a child, my father commenting that it was "...a ****** good thing too".

Bryan Davis