7 Responses to “The Yellow Impurity”

1. Phil
   March 30th, 2008 @ 10:55 pm

   There are actually two methods used for stop light legislation.

   In one, the yellow and red lights mean the same thing, legally. Green means it is OK to enter the intersection. Both yellow and red mean that you should stop before reaching the intersection if it is safe to do so. It’s illegal to enter the intersection on yellow or red if it you could have safely stopped, or if you were stopped already when the light turned yellow or red.

   In the other method, green and yellow mean the same thing. It is legal to enter the intersection if the light is green or yellow. It is illegal to enter the intersection if the light is red.

   These are the general rules for both methods. There are various exceptions; for example it is usually illegal to enter an intersection even if the light is green if there’s no room for you on the other side of the intersection.

   The first method makes the most sense, I think, and if I recall correctly is the method that was originally used. The second method was devised because it is easier to enforce (that is, it generates more revenue from tickets). Obviously, photo systems are useless for the first method, because the photo system doesn’t know if it would have been safe for you to stop at the yellow or red light.

   The second method has some problems, legally. Generally, if one is faced with a situation where a law must be broken no matter what you do, one cannot be prosecuted for breaking the lesser law. So, if you are approaching a yellow light and it’s not (in your opinion) safe to stop before reaching the intersection, can you be prosecuted for failing to stop if the light turns red before you get to the intersection? You are avoiding violating the law forbidding unsafe stopping.

   Also, adopting the second method in order to increase ticket revenues has put governments in awkward positions. Here in California, they have different laws for different circumstances. For example, in some circumstances they use the second method for cars, but the first for pedestrians. They want the ticket revenue they can generate on car drivers who enter the intersection on red, but they don’t want to create traffic snarls by allowing pedestrians to enter the intersection on yellow (which means there’s little hope of them getting across without blocking traffic). And it’s not just cars-vs-peds, the laws for cars switch methods depending on the circumstances. Isn’t that confusing? Fortunately, it’s not on the driver’s license test.

2. Flasshe
   March 31st, 2008 @ 9:56 am

   I think you got your methods reversed. Doesn’t it mean more tickets if proceeding on yellow is the same as red?

   At any rate, they should always make sure that the speed limit is appropriate for the length of the yellow light. As you say, the big risk is that you’re going too fast to slam on the brake, and have to worry about the people behind you.

3. Phil
   March 31st, 2008 @ 6:07 pm

   I think you got your methods reversed. Doesn’t it mean more tickets if proceeding on yellow is the same as red?

   No, it’s difficult to prosecute the “stop if safe on yellow and red” laws because the government has to prove you knew it was safe to stop but didn’t stop anyway. They have to take all the existing conditions into account when determining the safety of stopping at the particular moment the light turned yellow in your particular (and unique) circumstance.

   With the “ok to enter on green and yellow, but not on red” laws, they just have to prove you entered the intersection while the light was red, which can be done using dash-mounted cameras or photo-intersections. And people are more likely to contest a ticked based on whether you “thought” it was safe, than a ticket based on whether or not the car, in fact, entered the intersection after the light turned red.

   People are not likely to read a law that says it is unlawful the enter the intersection if the light is red and realize that it potentially conflicts with the necessity to stop only if it is safe to do so (particularly if they’ve never seen one of the “safe to stop” laws before).

4. 2fs
   March 31st, 2008 @ 8:53 pm

   I wonder if the distinction Phil makes in his first comment relates to the curious cultural distinction drawn by a friend of ours (who’s probably reading). He grew up in WV and now lives in Nashville – and when he visited me in the midwest, he was surprised to find that it was typical, and expected, for cars turning left at an intersection to proceed as far as possible into the intersection while waiting for a safe moment to complete the left turn. In Nashville, he said, that would be considered rude and needlessly aggressive; drivers wanting to turn left waited behind the intersection and, if there was time during the green (or yellow, I guess), they’d make the left turn. That struck me (and still does) as poor practice, since it would mean a few fewer cars able to complete the left turn, which in turn would mean more backup in the turn lanes or leftmost lane of traffic, which in turn would either necessitate more left-turn signals or (worse) longer signals…but that second alternative would just exacerbate the scenario, since it would give more cars more time to line up. In other words, if that’s the custom, it’s a dysfunctional one for traffic management.

   Let me also say that I hate it when drivers, out of “politeness,” yield to people trying to turn into traffic out of parking lots. There’s not traffic as such in the lot, and so those cars should wait until there’s a break in traffic – whereas yielding to them causes a backup *in* traffic.

5. Phil
   April 1st, 2008 @ 12:50 am

   In Nashville, he said, that would be considered rude and needlessly aggressive; drivers wanting to turn left waited behind the intersection and, if there was time during the green (or yellow, I guess), they’d make the left turn.

   I don’t know the law in Nashville in particular, but in every place I have checked the traffic codes, it is not just idiotic, but also illegal to wait behind the intersection at a green light. Green means go. You have to go, otherwise you are “obstructing traffic” which is a violation. You must enter the intersection and wait there for an opportunity to turn left.

   There are exceptions though. The big one is that usually it is illegal to enter the intersection if there’s no room for you on the other side. So, if you’re turning left and there’s space open on the street you’ll be turning onto, you must enter the intersection and wait. If there isn’t room, it’s illegal to enter the intersection. It’s exactly the same as when you’re going straight. If there’s room for you to go, you have to enter the intersection on a green light. If there isn’t room, you’re supposed to stop before the intersection and wait for room.

   Let me also say that I hate it when drivers, out of “politeness” yield to people trying to turn into traffic out of parking lots.

   That one’s more complicated. In general, when someone who is ahead of you on the road signals to turn into your lane, you’re supposed to yield (slow down) and allow them to. “Supposed to” here means “legally required to”. People are notorious for not yielding, though, and the police rarely ticket anyone for failing to yield except where there is an explicit yield sign (which I think is a huge mistake, since traffic would probably flow much smoother, and faster in total, if people did yield). But… the parking lot is not a street. Different rules. The cars on the street are not supposed to yield to cars coming out of the lot. As you note, people often do. I suppose it doesn’t matter too much if the person yielding is already going really slow or having to stop anyway. Another yielding “tradition” is when two lanes merge down to one, people often take turns, one car from each lane (zipper merging). Technically, whoever is ahead has the right of way, assuming they are signaling. But I think a lot of people would like to see the law changed to zipper merging. It’s not clear, though, how far back from the last possible point to merge the zippering requirement should apply.

6. Flasshe
   April 1st, 2008 @ 9:40 am

   You must enter the intersection and wait there for an opportunity to turn left.

   Which is really hard to do sometimes if there’s obviously no break in the oncoming traffic. And usually when the oncoming traffic is that heavy, the people on the other side are more than willing to run the yellow and even red lights, forcing you to run the red light if you’re out there in the intersection. I admit I will sometimes hang back before the intersection if I’ve arrived there late and there’s no way a break in the oncoming traffic will appear in that cycle. It also kind of depends on how many people are in back of me and if there’s a green arrow (and/or red arrow) or not. I’m super-paranoid about collisions these days.

7. 2fs
   April 1st, 2008 @ 11:33 pm

   Could be the Nashvillean approach arises from confusing the “do not enter if there’s no room” (such as not blocking the intersection, even if it’s a green light, if you’ll end up stuck in the intersection blocking cross-traffic due to backups) and the “wait until you can clear the intersection” concepts. What typically happens at busy intersections, of course, is that you end up having to wait until the light is yellow or even red; at that point, you complete your turn because otherwise you’re blocking the cross-traffic’s green, and it’s impractical to back up.

   The merging thing is interesting: “whoever’s furthest ahead” when? Because you’ll get idiots trying to dart around two feet before the lane merger is complete and cut in front of your car. On the other hand, I’ve been flabbergasted at the following: there’s a lane merger half a mile ahead; traffic is backed up in one lane and clear in the other; I’ll go into the clear lane and discover that I need to merge, say, five car lengths before the lanes merge…and people get pissed at me for passing them stuck in the backed-up lane. Uh, folks? The lane’s backed up only because you’re not using both lanes as you’re supposed to. I mean, yes, a merger’s coming up…but does that mean that ten miles back, everyone should go into the lane with the right-of-way? (Answer: in Indiana, yes, that’s how they do it: I was literally backed-up for about five miles before a tollbooth in Indiana once, all due to idiots not knowing the concept of “merging”…)

   Flasshe: You could probably get another week’s worth of posts out of bitching about traffic.

Comments are closed.

← The Future’s Always Tomorrow

Charity Evolution →