Err … “statutes”.
Hmm, can’t remember where I saw this (might have been my own driving manual from ahem a little while ago), but it seems to me like I read that a yellow light means “stop if you can”. You know, without laying ten feet of rubber or sliding right through the intersection.
From the Ontario Highway Traffic Act:
Amber light
(15) Every driver approaching a traffic control signal showing a circular amber indication and facing the indication shall stop his or her vehicle if he or she can do so safely, otherwise he or she may proceed with caution. R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 144 (15).
for Featherlou, Alberta’s Traffic Safety Act regulations say much the same thing:
Yellow traffic lights
53(1) When, at an intersection, a yellow light is shown by a traffic control signal at the same time as or following the showing of a green light, a person driving a vehicle that is approaching the intersection and facing the yellow light shall stop the vehicle before entering
(a) the marked crosswalk on the near side of the intersection, or
(b) if there is not any marked crosswalk, the intersection,
unless the stopping of that vehicle cannot be made in safety.
In other words, yellow means stop unless you can’t do so safely. (For Ontario, failure to stop at a yellow light has the same penalty as failure to stop at a red light.) This should be much the same throughout Canada due to provincial efforts to standardize traffic laws, and I would expect to be the same in most US states for the same reason.
Colorado doesn’t appear to address what to do at a yellow:
I’m glad you were so lucky. My niece was killed, and my mother and brother pretty gravely injured in two separate accidents where the assholes who hit them didn’t stop at the stop sign. They’re not suggestions, people; please, please, please, always stop at the stop light or stop sign.
I am sorry to hear that, Snickers. I walk downtown quite often, and my head is going like it’s on a swivel, trying to keep an eye on all the idiots who aren’t watching for my fragile body. I would say I am in serious danger of getting hit about once a month. That is way too freaking high.
Jesus christ give me a little credit for being able to see a car that is right in front of me. :wally
But if everybody took an extra five seconds to cross behind the car in front of them, and there were 50 cars in the line up (I’ve seen this) that is a bunch of extra wasted time for the last poor bastard in line.
Furthermore I still maintain that the guy doing the crossing has a much better view of exactly how much clearance there is, when compared to the guy that is either A) looking over his/her shoulder or B) looking in the rearview mirror. What may appear to be a very near miss to the guy infront might be 10 or 15 feet IRL.
Exactly. And this is hardly high-risk behavior. I don’t tolerate any clowning around when pedestrians are present or risking an auto-ped, but when it might result in a 5-10 MPH tap on someone’s bumper, the risk is frankly worth it. I mean, we could make all of the highways in American have a 30 MPH speed limit to save lives, but there are trade-offs. This is hardly an expensive trade-off and I say it’s better to have slightly more risk to some bumper at a four way stop and then use that time to make an intersection like a stop-light or the interstate safer.
Sure. And with your new X-ray vision you can see through that car and see the pedestrian crossing. Oh wait, you didn’t. Just like that taxi driver who buzzed within inches of me a week ago. He was saving a few seconds too.
Now there’s a good excuse to risk lives and property.
Its not the missing of the car that bugs me. Its the fact that you are blind to everything that is on the other side of that vehicle when you cut it so close.
But who cares about the peds. You’re saving precious, precious seconds!!!