When leaving private property, such as a shopping center, there is often a stop sign where vehicles enter the public roadway. Can a driver be ticketed for failing to stop at that stop sign?
Yes. I’ve seen it happen to someone I know, by our city police. And we asked a mutual friend at a gathering, a local District Court Judge, about it. He said that if they fought it in court, they would have almost no chance of winning, since they were entering a public road. Had it been one in the middle of the parking lot, entirely on private property, they might have had some slight chance of winning it. But not much.
For comparison, suppose you commit a murder of someone on private property, in a shopping center – can the city police still arrest you?
Look, it obviously depends on the jurisdiction in which the privately-owned road is located, and what the criiminal law of that place says.
But, typically, most jurisdictions have worked out that it makes sense to regulate traffic on public roads in the sense of “roads to which the public has access” rather than in the sense of “roads which are publicly maintained”. Running a stop sign is just as dangerous on a road built and maintained by a commercial entity for its own purposes as it is on a road built and maintained by a governemental agency; why would it not be criminalized?
Yes. I very narrowly talked my way out of getting one about 6 years ago.
Murder is not a good comparison which is always illegal anywhere. Public traffic laws are not valid everywhere.
Nah. Just drive straight ahead & get t-boned by the oncoming.
'Tude is no substitute for good driving, buckaroo.
And if you don’t stop you’ll eventually go blind.
There is a stop sign when you leave the car park at the motor registry near my place. That is where you go to do your driving test. If you drive out without stopping apparently the tester gets you to turn around and go back as you have already failed before you even got onto a road.
I can’t understand why you couldn’t be ticketed. From a logical point of view the sign has nothing to do with what kind of property you are leaving, but everything to do with the fact that you want to enter a road with, possibly, heavy traffic on it.
Here’s a cite from Seattle which says both yes and no. The stop sign itself may be unenforceable, but you have responsibilities entering onto a public street.
It depends.
Here is a short thread we did on this in August where I cite some law and several other previous threads: Do I have to stop at private stop signs? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
I would think that whether or not there is a stop sign before entering the public road, you still have to yield right of way to the traffic on the street. They’re not turning, you are, so they have the right of way. I think the stop sign is just a formality to get the boneheads who don’t realize this to stop before merging. It’s in the business’ best interest not to have an accident blocking the driveway to their establishment, so they’ll put up a sign to get people to stop.
Same here, as far as having a sign anyway. Except they made it trickier by using a faded, rusted out old stop sign. You’re supposed to stop at any stop-sign shaped sign.
I remember seeing something on Cops, and it was in regards to a turn signal instead of a stop sign. And I don’t remember the location—obviously, these laws will vary by city and state.
I’m paraphrasing, but it went like this, late at night:
“We’ve has a lot of problems with drugs at that motel back there, and that car just pulled out of the parking lot without signalling. I’m going to make a traffic stop and see what they’re up to.”
So at least in that one case, it would appear that even though the driver was exiting private property, he/she was still obligated to comply with the usual traffic laws.
When my daughter was 5 or so, she pointed out that I failed to stop completely at a stop sign. I told her that the signs with a white border were optional stops. Eleven years later, as she was beginning to drive, she finally realized I was kidding.
But that would mean they could bust me if I put a stop sign in the middle of my yard and run it. I mean they don’t set up speed traps at private race tracks, do they?
I recall back in the day when I was trying to get my license that several friends failed the driving test (in Ohio) because they did not stop at an unmarked entranced onto a public road; that is they just sort of rolled the stop with the cop sitting beside them. They performed the rest of the test perfectly and were told when they got back to the DMV that entrance onto a public road was an implied stop sign in Ohio and that they had failed the test.
Yep, the charge would be theft of municipal property.
You could fight a case like that and it would really depend on four things
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Is the stop sign regulation?
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Is the sign located ON private property. (Make sure it’s not just over the line). And it was put on the private property by the person owning said private property
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And the most important one, is there an agreement (oral or written) between the local police force and private property owner to enforce traffic regulations on their prooperty. This is the most important distinction. If the cops routinely patrol, the private property and the owner wants them to police it and has an agreement with them (oral or written), the courts will generally honor it.
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Mood of the judge
Also remember even if you didn’t get ticketed for the sign, there are a lot of other laws the cops could site you with. As you enter a public road you have to do it correctly and the key is properly yielding the right of way. Such as if you back out of your driveway onto a public street.
The cop could write you two tickets, running the sign and failure to properly yield right of way, while accessing a public street. The first may get thrown out and the second will hold up.
If I got a ticket, I would make sure the sign is an actual regulation stop sign. Make darn sure it is not on the public street but the private property and finally I’d contact the store owner and get him to state in writing (properly witnessed of course) that he has no agreement with local police to enforce traffic on his property.
If you show the judge those things he’d be apt to toss it out. (minus court costs of course :))
I’m a little confused here. Is there anything stopping the local municipality from (with the owner’s permission, of course) putting a municipal stop sign on private property if in their opinion it’s dangerous not to stop when entering the public street from that property, and wouldn’t that be an enforcable stop sign?
(The first intersection I reach when leaving my house is a four-cornered intersection, one entry of which is from a private street (*). There are stop signs on all four corners of the intersection, including the private street. All four of the stop signs look the same, leading me to believe that they’ve been put up and are maintained by the local township. I freely confess that I don’t know if the stop sign on the private street is on private or public property.)
(*) Yup, a private street, owned jointly by the approximately twenty houses on that street. They pay for their own snow removal and street maintenance.