The Glade 4.0

So,don't you hate it when someone calls you an ******* on the road because they don't know how to drive? Or am I just clueless, despite 35 years of driving experience?

Lemme see if I can express this in words, without a diagram. Four-way stop in Los Angeles, at rush hour. I'm behind another car, both of us turning left. No one is across from us (there rarely is at this intersection. Guy in front of me makes his turn. The next two cars on the left and right go straight across the intersection, while I'm pulling up and stopping. Figuring it's my turn next, I start pulling into the intersection to make my turn, and see that the guy on the left is also pulling into the intersection, going straight across. (And yes, I signalled - I'm completely neurotic about using my signals.) I hesitate to make sure he see's that I'm about to occupy the same space he is, and we do one of those little stop-and-start dances. We start gesturing at each other, and he calls me an *******, while I tell him to learn to **** drive (its warm enough in LA today that we both had our windows open).

Driving just pisses me off, for the most part. There's a similar intersection (a three-way), where 90% of the people turn left coming down off of our hill. People going up the hill turn left, forcing us to wait until they've made their turn, by which time some ******* is always trying to pull across the intersection before those turning left can get started. "Not your turn" is my favorite line at that intersection.

And the worst? People who don't know how to behave at four-way stop signs. (I'm detecting theme.) I was always taught that the vehicle that gets there first has the right of way; if two cars get there at the same time (rolling stop?!), then the car to your right has right of way. Nine times out of ten, however, as I sit there, trying to let the other guy on my right to go first, they sit there and look at me and wave me through. /sigh

And, don't get me started on the people who, at a stoplight making a left turn without an arrow, don't pull into the intersection. I sound like Luke Skywalker, "Pull up! Pull up!"

I'm sure my kids think I'm a total nutjob, by this time. So hard to model good behavior. I can't wait to teach them to drive, though!

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

I generally end up hating pedestrians far more than other drivers.

But I feel your pain, drivers out here are morons too.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I feel your pain Aethien. It's the same here in San Jose. We have a four way stop in our neighborhood that I go through almost every day. Invariably there is always one that won't wait their turn or one that doesn't know it's their turn. I have developed a very nice vocabulary that I use to express my ire, but never directly at the idiots. In this city you are liable to get shot for something like that, especially in the part of the city where I live.

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

We need roundabouts in San Jose. Roundabouts are fun and less annoying than stop signs.

I can't get mad when I'm driving. People are gonna be ****, it happens, I'm sure I've pulled some ******* driving moves a few times in my life. I spend too much time in my car to be upset while I'm in it.

Hakuna matata, brother.

Keep a can sealed in reach. Have rags soaking in brake fluid in it. Fling one of the rags at cars whose drivers act like that.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

The sheer volume of people who do not understand how stop signs work astounds me.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

THE WORST IS TWO WAY STOPS

Two way stops. You and the guy across the intersection both have stop signs. You're turning left, he's turning right. You got there first, or someone across the street just turned. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY (once traffic on the main drag is clear).

Everyone always assumes the guy turning right has the right of way, which forces people turning left to wait forever to finally be able to turn.

Or, I'm turning right and it's the other guy's turn, and he won't go, thinking I have the right of way.

You're turning left, which requires you to cross an on-coming lane of traffic; consequently, left-hand turns are almost always subject to yield rules and not right-of-way rules when it comes to turn order.

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No. No no no no no.

Roundabouts require people to be courteous and intelligent. They are the worst thing ever for this country.

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Holy shitsnacks!

You have clearly never been driving in Mexico. Roundabouts scare the **** out of me.

Roundabouts are awesome. You don't need courtesy, if there is something coming round you wait. If you can hit the gap, you go. Easy Peazy.

Unless you both have a stop sign (2-way, 3-way, 4-way). These alternate right-of-way.

Left yields to traffic with shared movement through the intersection. Right turn, straight ahead, left turn. So if you're at a traffic light, and you both get green, you're correct. However, stop signs break up traffic, and require alternating.

If you were correct, that same rule would apply to 3-way stops. 4-way stops.

They are great when there's gaps in the traffic. I've seen them where traffic is so heavy from one direction there is not enough breaks. Then they are a disaster.

There was a 6-way intersection with a bizarre arrangement of traffic lights. It took forever to get through there, even though traffic was minimal. They put in a roundabout and now it's just awesome.

They don't actually alternate right-of-way. If you are turning left and someone proceeds straight at a 4-way stop out of turn, guess who gets the ticket for failure to yield and is thus at fault for the accident in most states? The car turning left.

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2-way stops are treated as if there were no stop signs (or, alternately, as if the two of you with stop signs and clear traffic from the other street were at a stop light with greens both ways, if you prefer), but 4-way stops do give right of way to the car that arrived at the intersection first, regardless of his signaled direction. At least, they do in every state I've ever heard of.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

That's because when the officer shows up, he can prove someone turned left; he can't prove who was at the stop sign first. Nevertheless, they do, in fact, alternate right-of-way. The ticket is a result of the fact that it's impossible to perfectly moniter what's going on at every intersection all the time.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Thanks for the sympathies, folks. Got waved through intersections twice today when it was clearly the other person's turn.



Yeah, that's how the law reads in CA. I specifically looked it up to make sure I hadn't forgotten something or misremembered it since Driver's Ed (oh, that high schools still offered that).


No, no, I know, I've done my share of dumbshit stuff behind the wheel. The difference is that I know when I've done it, and try to make amends, or at least feel bad for a minute. But, you're right, shouldn't get worked up about it. I was riding the bus one day, looked down into a guy's car, and saw that he had a Post-it in the center of his steering wheel. In big letters, it said "LET IT GO". Words to live by, I guess.

Part of it probably had to do with the fact that I was on my way to see my mom in the hospital (she got out today, yes).


Hah, here in SoCal (Santa Monica), they have some roundabouts.

With Stop signs.

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

If they can write you a ticket for turning left, then you don't actually have right-of-way. If you can be legally assigned blame for an accident, because it can be proven you turned left but not proven that they proceeded out of turn, then what is written is trumped by the de facto rules of must-fault procedures.

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No one ever has right of way. The law only says who does NOT have the right of way. Yes, de facto "trumps" (since people still insist on pretending the concept of "trumping" anything is useful in discussing the law) theoretical denial of right-of-way, but only in cases where it's "his word against mine". I assumed that in explaining how left turn priority works: that both drivers would insist they were there first and therefore the other driver was required to yield right of way.

If that ISN'T the case; i.e. the driver going straight admits he was wrong, the officer happens to actually witness what happened himself, or a third party stops and makes a statement as to what happened, then the driver turning left will not be ticketed and the other will.

If right of way did not alternate, left turns would be practically impossible at busier intersections without traffic lights and enormous backups would result.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

NO. NONONONONONONONONONONO

You alternate ROW at stop signs.

And here the Glade has helped prove why everyone who drives is a complete moron. (except me, obviously)

Digging into the TX right-of-way rules yielded (har har) some surprising results. There are clear laws governing who should yield at signal-controlled intersections and at uncontrolled intersections. At stop-sign controlled intersections (whether two-way or four-way), there are no actual laws governing who should yield. You are required to stop at a stop sign. You are permitted to proceed only if it is safe to do so. A vehicle turning left must yield to oncoming traffic in all circumstances. That is all.

If a driver has come to a stop at a 4-way stop, and other vehicles are merely approaching the intersection, it should be safe for them to proceed through the intersection immediately (first come, first serve), but there's a huge caveat due to the left turn law. Scenario:

You arrive and stop at the intersection first, signal on, intending to turn left. Another vehicle is approaching the intersection from the opposite direction, but has not arrived yet. You will not be able to clear the intersection until after they have come to a stop (they will have to stop and wait for you to complete your turn). Should you proceed? Most people would say "yes" based on informal the first-come-first serve rule , but legally speaking you have no expectation of right-of-way. If a collision were to occur -- even if they struck you -- the failure-to-yield citation would probably fall on you.

All of the other informal tie-breaker "rules" of 4-way stops that don't involve left turns (yield to your right, alternate roadways, etc.) are just extrapolations from the rules for uncontrolled intersections. They also have no weight of law. Since there are no legal rules for who should yield right-of-way, failure to yield will almost certainly be presumed for the striking vehicle rather than the stricken. It may be polite to yield to your right, but if you strike someone coming from your left at a 4-way, you will probably be found at fault.

Granted, this might just be TX law, but I'm pretty sure this all derives from ASHTO rules, so it probably applies to most states.

Specific scenarios:


Since he was not approaching from the opposite direction, you are not required to yield to him, but technically he isn't required to yield to you either. Informally, it depends on which of you arrived at the stop bars first. I'm assuming you arrived at the same time. In that case (again, only informally) the safest and most polite thing for him to do would be to yield to you per the rules for uncontrolled intersections. When you realized he wasn't yielding, you definitely should have stopped rather than risking a collision regardless of informal rules or formal laws. It's aggravating, but if you had struck him, you would be at fault.




Sorry, but he is and it does -- at least for most states. There are no rules governing who must yield right-of-way at stop-sign governed intersections. Moreover, if you are turning left, you are required to yield to oncoming traffic in all circumstances except for a protected left. Even then, be cautious because...


Exactly this. Someone violating a traffic signal is presumed to have failed to yield. But good luck proving that they violated the traffic signal. Without evidence of that fact, you will be found at fault.


I browsed through the CA Vehicle Code, and it's rules are almost identical to TX with one exception: yield-to-the-right for simultaneous arrival is a formal law for all-way stop intersections. There is no alternation rule, and vehicles turning left must still yield right-of-way to any vehicle legally inhabiting the intersection. Per above, this effectively means "any vehicle in the intersection" unless you are in a protected left, with the same caveat as above.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

No, and here's why:

If you stop at a stop sign you must yield to traffic in the intersection. That includes people that happen to be turning left. You may only proceed when the intersection is clear.

He cannot go first because I'm entering the intersection to turn left. After the person in front of him goes, he's required to pull up to the sign and stop. By that time, it's my turn to go.

Now, if for some reason I'm a bit slow, he pulls up, stops, and starts again, and we enter the intersection at the same time, he's going to get cut off, and shown the bird.

Ah, here we have the root of the problem. This is incorrect in most states, believe it or not. You are required to yield to some vehicles already in the intersection, but not to all.

I forget where you are. Missouri, I think? The Missouri statues are almost verbatim the same as TX (again, most states voluntarily agreed to settle on a nation-wide standard. I think the standard comes from some AASHTO publication, but I'm not 100% sure.). Relevant parts, emphasis mine:


In summary: a vehicle stopped at a 4-way intersection does not have to yield to all vehicles in the intersection, just to those who entered from the other roadway. When drivers approach from opposite directions, they may enter the intersection simultaneously. If both are going straight through, there is no need for either to yield. If one is turning left, they must yield per #3. Period. It does not matter who got stopped first or who entered the intersection first. It might be polite to allow the left-turning vehicle to proceed ahead of you if he reached the intersection first, but it is no requirement.

Also, the alternation rule doesn't exist. Again, it's a polite, and logical thing to do since vehicles approaching from opposite directions on the same roadway are allowed to enter simultaneously, but the MO code doesn't provide for any specific way to resolve who should yield in a 4-way standoff. In a 3-way standoff, you should technically proceed in a clockwise fashion. It's just a matter of polite convention that the guy in the middle agrees to yield right-of-way to both his right and left, even though he isn't required to yield to his left.

Let's walk through a hypothetical just to be absolutely sure. Vehicle A and B are approaching a 4-way stop from opposite directions on the same roadway. A, intending to turn left gets there first. No other vehicles are present. How do the rules apply?

From A's perspective, he must of course stop at the sign. Immediately after that:

Rule #1: doesn't apply
Rule #2: explicitly does not apply
Rule #3: does not yet apply since A is not within the intersection yet.
Rule #4: part (a) applies, but we've already stipulated that there is no cross traffic.

So, A is permitted to enter the intersection. Now what may he do?

Rule #1: doesn't apply
Rule #2: doesn't apply
Rule #3: applies. As we're about to see, B is not required to yield to him, even if he is already in the intersection. Thus B is close enough to pose an immediate hazard unless A can clear the intersection before B completes his stop.
Rule #4: no longer applies since he's already in the intersection at this point.

From B's perspective, having just completed his stop:

Rule #1: doesn't apply
Rule #2: explicitly does not apply.
Rule #3: doesn't apply to him, but it does apply to A.
Rule #4: part (a) only applies to cross traffic, which does not include vehicle B.

Conclusion: Consistent with A's perspective, B can proceed through the intersection with the expectation that A will yield to him.

Basically, the laws in most states treat left turns at 4-way stops like any other unprotected left. You may be permitted to enter the intersection, but you still have to yield right-of-way to oncoming traffic, even if you were there first. I know this isn't how most people treat 4-way stops. Most people yield right-of-way to someone already in the intersection trying to turn left even though they aren't required to do so. If someone voluntarily yields to you, feel free to take it, but be wary of the assumption that all people will. It's theirs to give, not yours to take.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.