Minor Annoyances Part II: Bus Turn Signals

If you've driven in a North American city, you've probably noticed how transit buses indicate that they've stopped, or are about to stop, by turning on what on a passenger car would be called the hazard lights, or four-way flashers for you automotive engineers. When they're ready to move back into traffic, they use their standard turn signals. I'm not sure who the dim bulb that came up with this scheme is, but it has a fatal (sometimes literally so) flaw: the only way to tell whether or not you are about to be run off the road, er you need to yield to the bus is via a set of lights that you can't see because they're on the other side of the goddamned bus. I realize there's the issue of retrofitting thousands of buses and retraining both bus drivers and vehicle drivers, but it sure would be nice if we could separate (through blink rate, color, or a whole new set of lights) the "I'm stopping" signal from the "I'm changing lanes" signal.