Hyundai Indicator Shows Wiper Position

CARS.COM — It’s happened to everyone. It starts raining while you’re driving, or maybe you need to clean bug splatter off your windshield, you go to turn on the wipers … and instead flip your turn signal on. You quickly figure out what you’ve done and instead twist the knob on the end of the steering-column mounted stalk … and your high beams come on. Gah!

Now you’ve falsely indicated a turn to the driver behind you and blinded the driver in front of you. You’re officially a menace to motoring society.

Related: How to Replace Windshield Wiper Blades

Well, Hyundai wants to help you wipe the slate clean with a simple feature that isn’t common in cars but useful in familiarizing oneself with how to work the wipers. While driving the 2017 Elantra Sport recently, we took note of an indicator that appears in the gauge cluster’s digital display when you activate your windshield wipers.

It shows the driver whether the wiper switch is in the Off, Int(ermittent), Lo or Hi positions when you activate the wipers using stalk on the right-hand side of the steering wheel. After a few seconds, the indicator disappears until you move the arm again.

It may seem obvious — and maybe even a little silly. Let’s face it: If it’s your car, you’re going to familiarize yourself with how the wipers work after just a few rains, right? Maybe, maybe not. Some of us around here are willing to admit to never having become 100 percent confident in which position equals which speed, or able to blindly keep track of which position we’re in at all times in case we need to adjust the intensity.

But c’mon, you mean to tell us you’ve never mistakenly thought you’d turned your wipers off after the rain stops, only to wait a few seconds and hear that rubbery groaning noise as your wiper drags once across the bone-dry glass — then to add insult to injury, you switch to “off” again and it happens again? We can’t say the same.

What do you think? Is this a feature you’d find useful?