This thread was sort-of inspired by Padeye’s right-on-red remark in the Liquor Counter thread. It made me wonder if, in fact, NYC is the only place that prohibits r-o-r across the board. Like a good little Doper I did a search and, sure enough, there was an old thread on the subject which seemed to indicate that yes, NYC is the only exception in the USA. But that got me thinking about another traffic topic: stop signs. A search turned up nothing on s.s., so here’s my Q…
The Question
Here in NYC stop signs exist where a minor road (usually a street) intersects a major road (usually an avenue); the major road usually has right-of-way, and cars crossing/entering from the minor road must come to a “full stop” then proceed when space and safety permit.
When the two intersecting roads are of equal “value” (say, two one-way streets), usually only one will be arbitrarily signed, and the other unsigned. Very rarely, both will be signed; when that happens the DOT adds a little bumper-sticker-sized sign under the s.s. that reads “four-way stop” – which tells us drivers it’s time to play the me-first, you-next game at the intersection. Fine.
On a recent trip to San Francisco (and other places) it seemed that four-way stops are the rule, not the exception. But there are no little “four-way stop” mini-signs underneath the big s.s.'s! WTF? Are we supposed to know they’re all four-way? Is that the way of the world these days: stop sign = 4-way stop, everywhere except NYC?
(Needless to say, my SF stop sign experience this was a royal p.i.t.a. to me, but I’ll leave those sentiments for another forum.)
In California, a stop sign is only a 4-way stop if it is so marked.
San Francisco doesn’t have any particular traffic laws that are different from the rest of the state. The city has more one-way streets and turn prohibitions than others, but other than that, it’s pretty much like anywhere else in California.
You may have been running into blind intersections which require stops anyway.
California rarely has the little 4 way signs on it’s stops. You come to a stop sign, you stop, and you look to see what is there. Why would you need a little sign under the stop sign to tell you it’s a 4-way? It is pretty clear when their are lines in the road and octagonal signs on post facing the other ways. It would only be a problem if you were expecting it, and it wasn’t there.
Here’s the issue, ED. When I’ve got a plain stop sign and see an oncoming car in the intersecting street, I stop dead expecting him to go whizzing by. Except he doesn’t… he stops too. Which means I really did not have to wait for him in the first place. Which means the cars behind me, who knew that all along, are beeping me and giving me dirty looks.
If I knew it was a four-way, I could stop (or, really, slow), see that I was the first/only car at the intersection, and proceed regardless of the other cars.
I would beg to differ with Engineer Dan. In Southern California, if there is a 4-way stop, the sign is almost always marked as such. I live in a small city near L.A. and it has a lot of stop signs and the differences between the 4-way and 2-way stop signs are pretty clear.
2-way stop signs are normally found when a small street interects with a larger street when there is a rather large disparity in traffic volume.
If the streets have an equal amount of traffic, then a four-way stop sign is put up, or if it’s really busy, a traffic signal.
If the City of Los Angeles can manage to put up the little signs that say “4-way”, I would think that San Francisco could do so as well.
Perhaps that is why Los Angeles is a superior city to San Francisco.
Here in MD, and most of the places I’ve been if it’s a 4 way stop they have a sign for it. We also have **Left{/b} turn on red in a few places, but only on one way streets. I also thought some other state, Mass?, didn’t like people turing on red so they put up signs. I might just be dreaming that though.
I’ll vouch for Massachusetts having more no-right-on-red signs hanging than there are intersections, just about. I’m surprised when I can turn on red, but it has been known to happen.
Back in Texas though, four way stops weren’t always labeled except at busy intersections, or where visibility of this plain fact would be obstructed.
I saw a 3-way stop in Billerica, Mass. the other day.
Actually, in San Francisco, there should be little “4-way” signs under all the stop signs. This is not an assumption you should have to make.
The problem is almost certainly one of underfunding and vandalism. Elsewhere in Northern California those signs are everywhere. My WAG is that SF is too cheap or crime-ridden to have them up for very long.
I remember when “right-on-red” came in in the 1970s.
I grew up in Mass., and I remember that for a while, there was a “no right on red” sign at EVERY intersection with a traffic light. Apparently this was the result of a fight between state and federal government. I think that the federal government ultimately prevailed, and many of those signs were taken down, but there still are a decent number up.
What about the person on the right having the right of way? My company moved recently and I now go thru a 4-way stop on the way to work every day and I think I might be doing something wrong since back in Tx it is first come first serve.
I’ve driven around most of the Silly Valley and SF for the past few years, and I have to say, coming from the East Coast, that I, too, have been annoyed by the dearth of “4-way” signlets at four-way stops. It’s not so annoying in the daytime, when it’s easy to see the stop sign for the other directions, but at night they can be hard to see. Unless you’re familiar with the intersection, you have to assume it’s a 2-way stop.
Now that I’ve spent most of my day cogitating about the question posed in the OP, I’m wondering what the big deal is.
If you come up to a stop sign, you have to stop. If the intersection is clear, then you can go. If it isn’t, you can’t. Why do you need a sign that tells you that the opposing traffic has a stop sign also? Wouldn’t seeing cars stopped going the other way be a tipoff that it’s a four-way stop?
I checked the CA Vehicle Code and it doesn’t really get into the details of a four way stop. Basically a stop sign is a stop sign.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Across the board is a pretty definitive statement. I can name two places right off the bat that allow R on R. When departing the 59th St. Bridge, onto 21st. St. Also, when dealing with entering and exiting both Tunnels on the West side. Both areas use signals- but, right on red does occur legally in Old Enwye.
Cartoon, yes, of course there are exceptions to R-O-R, but they are extremely rare and all signed as such (“right turn permitted at red light after full stop”). So, allow me to rephrase: “NYC is the only place that prohibits r-o-r across the board, except where signs permit it.” There. Happy? Sheeeezus!
Now Bob, have you read my second post in this thread? The “big deal” is this: drivers approach 2-way and 4-way stop signs differently. Let’s assume a driver approaches a s.s. at an empty intersection:
At a 2-Way Stop: A driver never has the right-of-way. He must cross/enter the intersection when traffic permits. Thus, he 1. stops, 2. looks down the block for approaching crosstraffic, 3. waits for it to pass and 4. proceeds when he gets an opening.
At a 4-Way Stop: A driver does get the right-of-way. Thus, he 1. stops, and 2. (because, remember, the intersection is empty in this example…) proceeds on his merry way; there is absolutely no need for him to look down the block for approaching crosstraffic because he is confident that the other s.s. will prevent those cars from plowing into him.
True, the difference may only be a matter of seconds per s.s., but when you’re driving in a dark residential neighborhood with small streets (as I was in SF) not knowing if the s.s.'s are 2 or 4-way, you creep from block to block straining to see the perpendicular signs and approaching traffic, all the while being beeped at by the local drivers. Not fun.
This may not be fun, but I still don’t see this as being a big issue. First of all, if it’s dark and you can’t see the cross traffic very well, then you should be approaching every intersection with caution.
Perhaps I don’t have as much faith in other drivers as you do Stuyguy, but I don’t trust anyone to stop at a stop sign.
I asked some fellow drivers in the Los Angeles area about this particular problem and nobody seemed to get particularly worked up over the way stop signs were marked.
This could be a manifestation of different driving habits between the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
"…if it’s dark and you can’t see the cross traffic very well, then you should be approaching every intersection with caution.
Perhaps I don’t have as much faith in other drivers as you do Stuyguy, but I don’t trust anyone to stop at a stop sign…"
Well, yes, I do have a lot of faith that other drivers will obey the ss’s. And – I contend – so do millions of my fellow drivers.
It is a very common situation, especially in the outer boroughs (…in Manhattan there’s usually a streetlight at every friggin’ corner…), to have a two-way avenue that is intersected by dozens of one-way cross-streets. The avenue will have no traffic controls whatsoever (except for street lights, usually placed where the avenue crosses other major two-way streets), so cars zip along for blocks at a time doing the speed limit, 30 mph.
The only thing (other than his own sense of self-preservation) that prevents a driver from a cross-street from crossing into the path of this zipping avenue traffic is a stop sign.
Yet – and I think I can speak for tens of thousands of my fellow drivers here, because I observe this every day – no one creeps down the avenue, lurching from one intersection to the next, because they do not trust the cross-street drivers to obey the ss’s. No, despite the fact that it’s dark… that the cross-street cars are obscured by parked cars, buildings, and street furniture… and that, as a rule, most NYC drivers are selfish, me-first morons… everyone drives down the avenue confident that no car will shoot out in front of them.
I have a hard time believing that the same is not true for LA, SF or any other town for that matter.
"…if it’s dark and you can’t see the cross traffic very well, then you should be approaching every intersection with caution.
Perhaps I don’t have as much faith in other drivers as you do Stuyguy, but I don’t trust anyone to stop at a stop sign…"
Well, yes, I do have a lot of faith that other drivers will obey the ss’s. And – I contend – so do millions of my fellow drivers.
It is a very common situation, especially in the outer boroughs (…in Manhattan there’s usually a streetlight at every friggin’ corner…), to have a two-way avenue that is intersected by dozens of one-way cross-streets. The avenue will have no traffic controls whatsoever (except for street lights, usually placed where the avenue crosses other major two-way streets), so cars zip along for blocks at a time doing the speed limit, 30 mph.
The only thing (other than his own sense of self-preservation) that prevents a driver from a cross-street from crossing into the path of this zipping avenue traffic is a stop sign.
Yet – and I think I can speak for tens of thousands of my fellow drivers here, because I observe this every day – no one creeps down the avenue, lurching from one intersection to the next, because they do not trust the cross-street drivers to obey the ss’s. No, despite the fact that it’s dark… that the cross-street cars are obscured by parked cars, buildings, and street furniture… and that, as a rule, most NYC drivers are selfish, me-first morons… everyone drives down the avenue confident that no car will shoot out in front of them.
I have a hard time believing that the same is not true for LA, SF or any other town for that matter.
