As someone who has worked in a gas station where people would do that, it always pissed me off. I often wished that the owner could install some of those “severe tire damage” spikes that I could trigger from inside the store when people would cut across. Now, that said, I think there are times where you can legitimately shortcut private property and could probably get a judge to drop it, even if the law still says no. The one that comes to mind for me was when there’d be a breakdown or a wreck in the right lane before the intersection and people would cut the corner off the lot to make that right turn instead of going into the middle lane (this particular intersection had three through lanes each way and two left turn lanes each way as well) and then making the turn.
And yes, I have seen a cop pull someone over for doing it. Made for an entertaining time on a slow day. Not as entertaining as the time the cops were running seatbelt enforcement off the corner of the lot and got a guy for DWI and drug possession as a result, but still amusing.
I was at the entrance of a friend’s apartment complex, waiting at a stop sign getting ready to pull out, and talking on my cell. I’m still in the grounds of the complex, mind you. An officer rode by and clocked me. I saw him make a u-turn and knew I was screwed. Meanwhile, I threw the phone on the passenger seat, fastened my seat belt and pulled out of the complex. He pulled me over and wrote me up. So yes, you can get ticketed if you’re on private property. Nothing is sacred any longer.
I would take your friend’s advice, though. Act as though you’re going somewhere within the complex if they catch onto you.
Well, no. If you hadn’t actually entered the public roadway, a lawyer probably could have gotten that dropped. Just the same as farmers frequently operate unregistered vehicles on their own property–without any license plates or sometimes without even any registration at all. How many rural people own off-road motorcycles that never ever get license plates for them?..
The one exception to the normal private-property is that local/state/federal gov’t can place roadsigns where private roadways join public ones. If you are leaving a private road and entering a public road, if there is an official stop sign or traffic signal, you must obey it. Even if the stop sign is “fake” (obviously not placed by gov’t) or if there is no stop sign, there is usually a law that says you have to yield to oncoming traffic anyway.
…If all public-roadways are applicable on private property, then why isn’t the Indy500 limited to a top speed of 65 MPH?..
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The critical difference appears to be whether or not the property is “open to the public”.
I would have to engage in considerable circumvention of rules, gates and fences to drive my 2002 Mercury Sable onto the track during the Indy500. Either that or I would have to rent the track in question.
If the cops can simply drive onto your lot, they may be inclined to consider it a “public place” for purposes of traffic enforcement. If they attempt to enter your lot and are confronted by a gate being operated by your employee, the scene changes. If your gate operator turns them away because they’re not registered competitors in in the “DougC 500”, they’re going to have trouble claiming that the guys racing on your track were on a lot “open to the public”.
Some guys in Cleveland got in trouble a few months back because they were using a legally procured private lot for various racing purposes and failed to control a “back way” onto the lot. The cops drove in the “back way” and then proceeded to treat the whole event like a bunch of guys racing on public roadways. I don’t know how it turned out once it went to court.