I was having a disagreement with my friend about this earlier, and Google didn’t provide any answers, so I thought I’d ask here.
When you’re in a parking lot, for a grocery store, or a shopping mall or whatever, do you need to follow the traffic rules, legally? I mean, I was under the impression that the government’s traffic rules only applied to government roadways.
I know that malls often put up stop signs and the like inside, to try to stem accidents, but I always figured those were probably just knock-offs, and not official stop signs from the government.
As long as you don’t hit someone, would you be in any legal trouble for just blowing through those? Or driving against the arrows? Or just driving across empty parking spaces and ignoring the intended pathways?
I had to re-apply for my license a few years back, and I asked the (Ohio) trooper giving me the road test this very question. His reply was to always obey the laws, and I regret not pushing him for a real answer. I’m way too intimidated by cops.
A little Googling and it seems that this varies from one place to another. This link says that cops can enforce traffic laws on public property in FL and this link says that as of a couple years ago, cops couldn’t enforce traffic laws in mall parking lots in Sacramento.
I was told, so it may not be true, that traffic laws are enforceable on any parking lot, driveway or private road connecting onto a public road that is publicly accessible.
Standard traffic laws applied in North Carolina when you were in a ‘public place’.
Loosely, if I can drive onto your lot with my car, it’s a ‘public place’.
As usual I can only answer with my knowledge of New Jersey laws. In NJ there are a few very specific motor vehicle statutes that can be applied on private property. Not following lane markings or stop signs that Walmart puts up in their parking lot is not enforcable the same as if you were on the roadway. However, careless driving and reckless driving tickets can be written on private property. So even though the specific statutes can’t be enforced, if you drive like an idiot (careless driving) or a maniac (reckless driving) you can get a ticket.
Seriously, there was a State Supreme Court case here in Wisconsin about a decade ago that ruled that traffic laws could be enforced in areas “open to the general public” (such as a Walmart lot). The case stemmed from a guy arrested for driving drunk in [I believe] a store parking lot.
I don’t recall if this ruling addressed stop signs put up by the business itself.
I’m gonna do something I rarely do on the SDMB: guess. My guess is that the cops can’t generally give you a ticket (YMMV) for, say, running a stop sign on private property. However, I’ll bet if there’s an accident you can be held liable because you ran a stop sign. Contradictory? Not at all. Ever see those yellow speed limit signs (often at exit ramps)? They’re yellow because they aren’t enforceable absent a traffic accident. The cops can’t give you a ticket if you go faster than the speed posted on them. However, if you cause an accident and the cause can be traced back to the fact that you were going faster than the posted speed limit, you can be ticketed. In other words, it’s just a suggestion, but if you choose to ignore it and there’s an accident, it’s your fault. I’ll bet the same logic is at play concerning private traffic signs.
Sounds like a bad guess to me. If you look at my previous post than you could see that your guess is incorrect in one of the fifty states. I’m pretty sure it would be incorrect in most of the others also.
If you DO have an accident in a parking lot, you might find the liability is assigned as if you were on the street. My wife found this out twice. Once, she ran an in-lot stop sign, and got bumped into by a van she didn’t see. (ding ding, her fault) Another time, her car wasn’t moving. She was in a parking space, about to get out of the car. She opened her door just before another car zipped into the space next to her. (ding ding, her fault)
Big parking lots are very tricky places. Some folks get into the empty parts and swoop across the painted aisles to get to the exit. I do that, too, but my head is swiveling around to see if somebody else is also creating her own reality. I like to eat chicken, but I won’t play chicken.
I remember a supermarket in Homestead, FL that had an ATM outside the building. People would hop out of their cars in a clearly marked NO PARKING zone to use the ATM. The resulting traffic jams were horrific; the Miami-Dade sheriffs department would periodically intervene and write tickets as fast as possible but I don’t know what the drivers were being charged with. For a day or two, all would be well but then history would repeat itself.
I asked my police officer brother-in-law this question recently. In Massachusetts, a private landowner can authorize/request the police to enforce the traffic laws within the parking lot. Since it’s not readily evident which lots are being enforced, it’s prudent to follow the traffic signs.
Several years ago I got into a fender bender in a Walmart parking lot. I had pulled back out of a space and as I started moving forward another car made a U -turn from the next lane over around some parked cars, so I didn’t see her. She smacked into my driver’s side front door. It was only a fender bender and no one was hurt, but I’d only been driving for a few months and this was my first accident, so I called the police. A cop came out to take a report and he claimed he couldn’t assign fault or write a ticket (either to me for “improper lane usage” or her for an improper turn) because it was private property. Kind of cheesed me that he couldn’t write a ticket, because our insurance companies had to duke it out to see who was at fault. I heard through my insurance company that the woman driving the other car claimed the cop said it was my fault. I think she took it to mean when he said he could have written me a ticket for improper lane usage that meant the cop thought I was at fault. If so, she forgot he said he could’ve also written a ticket to her for an illegal turn.
Stop signs were yellow, w/ black lettering, when I was a kid, but they changed to red sometime in the fifties. I suppose you might find a left over yellow one in some out of the way location, but no gov’t. agency is going to erect one on a public roadway today.
Similar w/ yeild signs, but they changed about a decade later.
I’d guess that, in most locations, police are not going to enforce traffic laws on private property w/o an owner/tenants complaint and then any charges will likely be trespass related. Police are burdened w/ too many other responsibilities and most depts. are short staffed. Most jurisdictions have changed their laws to exclude private property because of these financial restraints.
I am in Slidell, Louisiana, and I just got a speeding ticket in a shopping mall parking lot. The mall is private property, so does anyone know the Louisiana law for this circumstance, or if not, where I myself may find it.
Just kidding.