Friday, July 11, 2003

This is a driving question.

When traffic lights are out completely or blinking red, you are supposed to:

a.  just keep driving no matter what
b.  slow down, but keep driving
c.  stop out of courtesy (at your own discretion) if there’s someone at the crossroads
d.  stop as if it is an all way stop intersection

The answer is “d.” That’s the law, and I heard it reiterated by the traffic guy on the radio as I was driving in this morning. Why? Because there are a lot of areas where power is still out because of the storms from last night.

And I encountered a few on my drive in. So I stopped at the first light that was out completely and got soundly honked at by the cars behind me. And out of stubbornness, I sat there until someone in the other lane got the hint and stopped as well, because there was a long line of cars to the left that wanted to turn left onto our road and no one was stopping as they’re supposed to.

There were two other interections out, and we stopped at those as well. It’s the law, not just courtesy. And you’re supposed to stop whether or not there are cars on the crossroads.

So that’s your driving lesson for this morning.