When Must You Use Your Indicators?

The short version

When you must signal

Before turning, or before moving left or right on the roadwayRegulation 300

If your vehicle has direction indicators

You must use them, not a hand signalRegulation 326(1)(a)

After the manoeuvre

Switch the indicator offRegulation 326(1)(b)

If the indicators fail

A hand signal, in the manner prescribedRegulations 324 and 325

Hazard lights (all four together)

Only stationary in a hazardous position, or moving in an emergencyRegulation 198(6)

Hazard lights in any other circumstance

ProhibitedRegulation 198(6)(b)

The duty to signal, and what counts

Regulation 300 sets the general duty: the driver of a vehicle who intends to stop, suddenly reduce speed, turn left or right, or move left or right on the roadway must give a conspicuous signal of that intention, visible to anyone approaching from the front, the rear, or the side, and held long enough to actually warn them.

"Move left or right on the roadway" is doing more work in that sentence than it looks like — it's what makes changing lanes, not just turning at a corner, a signalling duty. Regulation 302 adds the timing: you must indicate before reaching the point where you intend to turn, not as you start the manoeuvre.

If the vehicle has indicators, you use them — and then you turn them off

Regulation 326(1)(a) requires the driver of a vehicle fitted with direction indicators to signal with them, not with a hand signal, for a turn or a lane movement. Regulation 326(1)(b) then closes the loop: once the need to signal has passed, you must switch it off. Modern self-cancelling indicators do most of this for you after a full-lock turn, but the duty is yours, not the mechanism's — a stalk that doesn't cancel on a gentle lane change is a driver problem, not the car's.

The old hand signals — regulations 324 and 325, an extended arm rotated for a left turn, an extended flat palm for a right turn — still exist in the regulations for exactly the situation where they're needed: a vehicle with no working indicators, or a tractor, two-wheeler or animal-drawn vehicle where the older provisions still apply.

Hazard lights are for two situations, not a general warning

Regulation 198(6) draws a narrow line around the switch that operates all four direction indicators together. It must be used when the vehicle is stationary in a hazardous position, or in motion in an emergency situation — and subregulation (b) then prohibits using it in any circumstance other than those two.

That rules out the common habits: flashing hazards briefly to thank another driver, leaving them on while illegally parked as if that makes the parking acceptable, or running them continuously while driving normally in heavy rain because visibility feels poor. None of those is "stationary in a hazardous position" or "in motion in an emergency" — and using all four indicators together outside those two cases is itself the thing the regulation forbids.

Common questions