The Polite Point: Britain's Glorious, Obsolete Trafficator

There was a small piece of mechanical theatre that had been lost to the ages. It involves a deliberate flick of a switch on a Bakelite dashboard, a gentle whirring sound, and the emergence of a small, illuminated orange arm from the side of the car. This was the trafficator, the semaphore indicator, and its gentle pivot was once Britain's way of saying, "I say, I'm turning left now, if that's quite alright with you." The semaphore arm was a polite suggestion, not the stark command of a modern LED's aggressive blink. And nothing, absolutely nothing, says more about the character of the British motor industry.

Engineered by Optimists, Executed by Lucas

Before this charming contraption, indicating your intention to turn a corner involved winding down a window, in the rain, and sticking your arm out. It was a system that presumed you were driving a very narrow car, weren't so portly as to be unable to reach, and that your extremities wouldn't snap off from frostbite. The semaphore arm, therefore, was a magnificent leap forward in civility.

The device itself was a masterpiece of British engineering, which meant it was just clever enough to work most of the time. A solenoid, a hinge, a little bulb inside a casing: that was it. Had the Germans invented it, it would have been hydraulically damped and crafted with the precision of a Leica camera. Had the Americans done it, it would have been a foot long and dipped in chrome. The British, however, engineered it to be just right, or just right on a sunny day when it felt like cooperating.

And this brings us to the elephant in the garage: the electrics. The vast majority of these charming little arms were made by Joseph Lucas Ltd, a company whose products earned him the affectionate nickname, "The Prince of Darkness." Lucas didn't make bad components, not really. They made components that worked splendidly, right up until the moment they very suddenly didn't, usually on a dark country lane in the middle of a downpour. The semaphore arm was a prime candidate for Lucas's unique brand of engineered apathy. The solenoid that powered the arm could burn out. The hinge could get gummed up with road filth. And in winter, it wasn't uncommon for the arm to become frozen solid in its little recess, leaving the driver to flick the switch back and forth in vain hope, listening for a whir that would never come. This wasn't a bug, it was a core feature of British car ownership: the thrill of not knowing which part of your car would choose to stop working today.

The Social Signal of the Suburbs

Nowhere was the trafficator more at home than on the Morris Minor. The Moggy was the definitive transport of the post-war middle class: the district nurse, the vicar, the provincial bank manager. It was a car designed with a deep-seated sense of modesty and practicality. The semaphore arm was its perfect companion. It was an unpretentious signal for an unpretentious car, driven by people who believed in queuing, apologising for everything, and not making a fuss. A flashing light, you see, was a bit… loud. A bit American. A bit boastful. A semaphore arm, on the other hand, had the quiet dignity of a butler clearing his throat to announce a visitor. It was a signal that respected social decorum.

An Inevitable Retreat

Of course, its time was always limited. The rest of the world, particularly the vast and lucrative American market, had settled on flashing lights. Flashing lights were cheaper to make, easier to bolt onto the corners of a car, and supposedly more visible. Let's be honest, were they really? A small blinking light on a rainy night is easy to miss. An entire arm sticking out of the side of a car, physically pointing in the direction of travel, is a rather unambiguous statement of intent. You would have to be reading a particularly engrossing novel at the wheel to miss it.

But progress, as it always does, came for our friendly little arm. New regulations, driven by a desire for global standardisation, killed it off. Carmakers found it increasingly difficult to integrate this strange, fussy appendage into the sleek, jet-age styling of the late 1950s and 60s. It was a relic of upright, formal car design in an age of fins and curves. So, it was retired. The little slot was welded up, and the polite, mechanical wave was replaced by the relentless, soulless tick-tock of the flasher relay. It was a victory for accountancy and bureaucracy over personality, a pattern that would repeat itself in the British motor industry.

The semaphore arm represents a fork in the road where British car design could have stayed wonderfully, eccentrically British, but instead took a hard turn towards bland internationalism. It was a simple, elegant solution from a time when cars had a genuine national character. Today it stands as a monument to a different era. The British solution was to build a small, mechanised arm that waved for you, provided it hadn't been shorted out by the rain. It was a slightly silly, utterly charming, and deeply human piece of design. And the automotive world is a poorer place without it.