Car steering design issue

Hey guys

I need to have a system that can be used to switch off the indicator after the car wheels are in their normal position. As this is a part of a bigger project, I decided to use the steering position instead of the wheels'. Here are some of my ideas:

1. To use a simple switch that is turned on while the steering is rotated in one dirn and goes off when it is being turned back into normal position.
2. To use hard contacts such that each time the steering wheel is rotated, two conductors touch, and a pulse is given to a counter. Then I can use the LSB of this counter.
3. Use a potentiometer to successively sample current at two instances and see if the steering wheel is being rotated left or right, and take necessary action.

The plan is to use this swtich as input to a microcontroller and to give a signal to start the internal counter, so that the indicator is swtiched off after some time when the wheel is back in position. (The microcontroller is a part of the rest of the project, so we might as well use it).
Can all you brainy people please offer your thoughts on the same and help me out here? This is my very first electronics project. Altough it uses an MC on the whole, this portion of the design does not. I hope i have posted in the right place.

I would see if a magnet strapped to the shaft of the steering column down in the engine bay would actuate reed switches placed either side of "a head" - say 45 degrees. This way you would not destroy the cars interior. I am a little bit worried what happens when you go down a curvy road. Ideally by the time the car's wheel has been turned the car is going round the corner. I would design a system that shocks the driver if he goes round a corner without indicating.
Frank