This intersection is a four-way stop. On one corner, the pavement is painted with a white triangle as seen in the image below. This seems to be a simulation of a raised “island” sometimes found at lighted intersections to indicate that a right-turning vehicle must yield but is not required to stop if the light is red (these were around long before right-on-red laws). Is that what is going on here? Can the vehicle follow the red path and merely yield even though it is a four-way stop?
Yes. Only the traffic that’s going through the intersection must stop. The turning car is merging with traffic so must yield. I would think there would be signs.
ETA: Just looked in street view, no Yield sign though there’s no stop line for the right turn.
No signs other than the Stop signs. It’s a small intersection in a residential neighborhood. I’m just trying to decode the painted triangle. The right turns from the other three directions have no such indicators.
What a bad design! There should be clear signage so that everyone can tell what’s expected.
Not necessarily. My neighborhood doesn’t even have stop signs at its three intersections, and I’ve seen other areas like that too. It depends on the traffic volume.
Yes, though at completely unmarked intersections it’s apparent that everybody has the same (lack of) expectations. At this one, it’s puzzling if you don’t know it already. My guess is that the person turning would yield by default.
This intersection is marked as a 4-way stop.
Here in the SFBA CA, these often do not have signage. Cutting costs, ya know.
Yes, here too. And there are often no signs at lightly-trafficked, residential intersections.
A neighborhood I used to live at in Medford, OR had several two-way yields; one road had the right-of-way and the other had yield signs. Seemed to work out OK.
I would yield, but not necessarily come to a full stop. There’s no stop line in the turn lane so I can’t imagine you’re expected to stop before turning right.
Most intersections I see with such a right-turn island (raised or just painted), and with a stop sign for straight-through traffic, will have a separate sign (either STOP or YIELD) for the right-turning cars. I’m in CA.
This kind of intersection, with lights not stop signs, is fairly common where I live and there aren’t yield signs, just as there aren’t yield signs on highway entrance ramps. You are supposed to yield while merging, not that lots of people do.
Now, I am not a traffic lawyer, but given the relative location of the stop sign and the intersection/merge lane, and the wording in the Virginia code, I’d say that technically, you are required to stop prior to entering the intersection.
46.2-821. Vehicles before entering certain highways shall stop or yield right-of-way.
The driver of a vehicle approaching an intersection on a highway controlled by a stop sign shall, immediately before entering such intersection, stop at a clearly marked stop line, or, in the absence of a stop line, stop before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection, or, in the absence of a marked crosswalk, stop at the point nearest the intersecting roadway where the driver has a view of approaching traffic on the intersecting roadway. Before proceeding, he shall yield the right-of-way to the driver of any vehicle approaching on such other highway from either direction.
Since the stop sign is well BEFORE any of the merge lanes, it seems to me and my reading of the code, that it would “apply” to all traffic entering that intersection. The traffic turning right doesn’t have a a stop line (like the straight traffic does) or a crosswalk, so the third provision of “where to stop” applies.
What I “think” I’m more used to seeing is where the white triangle area is concrete and elevated, and the stop sign is placed on it. Thereby if you’re turning right, you’re no longer on the section of road that the stop sign applies to.
But, realistically, coming up to this intersection, I’d reasonably expect people going right to yield and not actually stop.
Notwithstanding the specific wording of the law, the reason I ask this question is:
If the cars turning right are supposed to stop, what’s the point of the painted triangle?
No one has mentioned that when you turn right at the triangle you are entering a lane that is separate from the main crossing traffic. So it is safe to turn right without a stop.
I don’t think I have ever encountered such an intersection in Ohio. They would have a raised island but always at a traffic light controlled intersection. At the intersection near my house two of the directions have raised islands. One is marked to allow right turn on red after a stop, the other has no right turn on red at all.
It really does seem to be designed to be a yield, as there’s no oncoming traffic in that lane to warrant a stop.
However, I would have expected the stop sign to have a (smaller) sign like this under it:
This, I would think. (Your Laws May Vary.) In all the universes I’ve ever lived in, painted lines like that are, by definition, the legal equivalent of a raised concrete island.
This applies also to a divided road, where there is a strip as wide as a full lane down the middle of the road, bounded on both sides by a double yellow line. That is considered to be the equivalent of a raised divider – and in particular, that means you can’t make a left turn across it.
Does the pole with “696” on it have a stop sign? Doesn’t look like it to me, and it would be a very stupid place to put the stop sign since you are 20 feet or so before the intersection. It looks to me that the other side of the intersection - Wolftrap Road? - doesn’t have one either. The cross street does on both sides.