Michigan if it matters, a couple traffic law questions I’ve been wondering about:
You come up to a stop sign and there is a car in front of you already stopped. You stop behind him. You are in position to see left, right and in front of you perfectly and there is nobody in sight. When the car in front of you moves, must you pull up and stop again? Is it a matter of being within a certain distance of the stop sign or any other point?
General question about traffic signs on “private” property. I went to the library early this morning to return a book. Nobody in sight so I went in the exit, rolled thru a stop sign by the front door and went out the exit. Did I risk being ticketed? Might the fact that it was a public library make any difference (perhaps the city has more say over how I drive than say WalMart).
Never been quiet sure about #2. I’ve rolled thorugh stop signs in lots with a cop right there watching, doesn’t mean it was legal. Also, in some states, such as a Wisconsin , we do NOT have a “no fault” or 50/50 rule. That means, that in every accident someone is ALWAYS responsible for it. Which ever party is deceided to be more then 50% negligent is the party held responsible. Running a stop sign (regardless of if it’s on public or private property) would probably push you over that 50% mark…But that’s not really what you asked I suppose.
As for #1, I don’t see why you should be allowed to run it. Wheather it’s safe or not is one thing, I don’t know if you’d get a ticket if a cop saw it, but it certainly wouldn’t be legal. They only way I could see it being legal is if the first car had stopped ahead of the stop line, so that when you came to rest you were still behind it (but near it).
Good question, also from Michigan. This kind of bugs me, because I generally always stop at the white line, or before the stop sign, or the ::mumble-mumble:: prescribed distance from the corner. But often the guy in front doesn’t, and he passes it by a car length. So I stay put. Strictly speaking, I’ve arrived at the intersection and come to a complete stop before the guy to my right, so I could go right away. But the guy to the right (who normally has right of way [yes, it’s fine to say that, it’s a shortcut meaning “to whom someone {I in this case} must cede right of way”]) thinks that since the car in front of me went, it’s his turn to go, even though I’m strictly speaking, correct. This is about the only time I ever behave like a woman (that’s not sexist, that’s just idiomatic), pull forward a few feet and stop so that it looks like I “just arrived” at the intersection, so the guy on the right goes like he wants to and think he deserves to.
[quote2. General question about traffic signs on “private” property. I went to the library early this morning to return a book. Nobody in sight so I went in the exit, rolled thru a stop sign by the front door and went out the exit. Did I risk being ticketed? Might the fact that it was a public library make any difference (perhaps the city has more say over how I drive than say WalMart).[/QUOTE]
I usually ignore them if there’s absolutely no chance that there’s a danger to anyone or anything, except for the disabled people parking. You can get a ticket for parking there, even on private property. You can probably get a ticket for running the stop signs. A definite answer would be good. There’s a Kroger where jackasses always try to hit me, because they have stop signs and don’t realize that I don’t, so there must be some authority for determining that they’re at fault when they inevitably hit me one day, right?
It was explained to me in Driver’s Education class is that one MUST stop AT the stop sign, not before it.
From a personal safety point of view, it makes sense to stop at the stop sign rather than before it. I look at it like this:
What is the difference between stopping a few feet in front of the stop sign and stopping 50 feet in front of it? What about 100 feet? In my mind there really isn’t any difference. By the time you get to the intersection, there could be an oncoming car and you would have to wait for it to pass anyways.
Or…
Lets say that instead of being behind one car, you are behind fifty. Each car has a clear view of the intersection. By the time you got to the intersection, you have been stopping and starting a lot of times, yet you would still have to pull up and stop at the stop sign because the status of the intersection would have changed between when you got in the line and when you pulled up to the sign.
Well, I know for a fact that you can get a ticket in Ann Arbor if you do this on a bicycle. (I also know that if you don’t pay the ticket and then get pulled over in your car a year later you will be frisked and taken to the police station to pay.)
Don’t know about stop signs but I got a ticket once for parking in a no parking zone in a private parking lot in Dearborn. (Fought the ticket because I parked on a striped area but with no signs and it was covered with snow. Won because the guy who wrote the ticket couldn’t tell the judge how I violated the parking rules.)
Unless you are the first vehicle at the stop sign, you are not at the intersection. You are a car length away and your view and movement is impeded by the vehicle in front of you. Besides, what is the big deal about coming to a full stop, at the intersection, before proceeding?
Related to the first question, I recall my dad saying that Massachusetts law used to allow something like three cars to go through the stop sign together. Can anyone confirm or deny that?
This was going to be similar to my answer. Where my office is located is on a road that starts at one end as a public road owned and miantained by the village. Right next door to us is the public works facility, and technically the end of THAT road. But in reality, the road continues with a different name and after it passes by us, becomes the back entrance to the high school parking lot.
There are stop signs and speed limit signs on the district-owned piece of the road, and these signs are enforced by the PD, but only because each year we send them a letter renewing our agreement for them to be able to enforce the signs on private property.
A library isn’t private property but municiple property. Traffic laws count. In fact most roadways on government property are usually listed somewhere as a state highway or city street, even if it’s the parking lot of a library or court house.
I get arguments all the time when I stop people speeding through a park that it’s “private property so traffic laws don’t count” (sigh! :rolleyes: )
Some years ago the Wisconsin State Supreme Court ruled that traffic laws could be enforced upon private property that was accessible to the general public, i.e. a shopping mall parking lot.
the theory
“if I dont stop I can save a whole 2 seconds”
the truth
“not stopping means you arrive at the next red light 2 seconds early”
this is one of those nonquestions, drivers who habitually dont stop, esp while turning right not only dont save any time but they endanger lives constantly…just watch at a fairly high pedestrian intersection and see how many “not stopping” drivers almost hit someone crossing or about to cross the street.
Around here the stop signs are generally set so far back that there is plenty of room for a car in front. So you can stop at the line, but still not be next to go.
Unless, of course, those 2 seconds let you get through the next light before it turns red.
Oh, Gfactor, thanks for the cite, but I am not sure it means everything we are taking it to mean. In many parking lots there are no full sized stop signs, but rather either the word stop painted on the ground or a miny stop sign. From your link:
My bold. It seems that they only enforce the controls they put in place, which possible do not include the measures I just mentioned.
I only perused the other answers, but I think I’ll just be corroborating what’s been said above for #2.
At the TC governmental center there is an exit that has right and left out turns separated. People don’t respect that. I asked a cop if they could ticket people for that, because it’s dangerous, and he said that he could not, as it was private property. (Not a public road.)
We’re processing an application for a large retailer. It has been pointed out that we can get the directional signs for the entrances enforceable by the police.
So the answer is usually not, but private traffic signs can be made enforceable.