Nick Keenan writes Dr. Gridlock to set him straight on trail crossings.
I want to correct something that came up in your [July 19 online] chat. A reader complained about cyclists crossing a trail and not yielding. I know it's just a chat, but you owe it to your readers to keep them well informed.
In the three local jurisdictions, a trail crossing is a crosswalk. In all three, motorists must yield or stop for pedestrians in crosswalks.
In the District and Virginia explicitly, and implicitly in Maryland, cyclists using a crosswalk have the rights and duties of pedestrians. Motorists are required to stop or yield to cyclists in crosswalks. The law is unambiguous about this.
The only duty that pedestrians and cyclists have at a crosswalk is not to enter the road so suddenly that motorists are unable to yield. This might not be popular, and people might not agree that this is the way the law should be, but it is the law.
Stop signs at trail crossings are problematic, because, as your reader shows, they erroneously give motorists the impression they have right of way when they do not.
Dr. Gridlock replies:
The goal of all these laws is to keep people from crashing into each other, no matter how they are traveling. A driver approaching a crosswalk has an obligation -- moral, as well as legal -- to yield or stop for a person in a crosswalk. That is indeed unambiguous. As Keenan pointed out, the person planning to use the crosswalk also has an obligation not to step into the crosswalk if an approaching driver doesn't have sufficient stopping distance.
As the online commenter pointed out, many trail crossings differ from the typical crosswalk in that they have a red stop sign for trail users. Those signs also are unambiguous. They do not mean, "Calculate whether you can make it across the road before you get hit and then decide whether you actually have to stop."
As the online commenter pointed out, many trail crossings differ from the typical crosswalk in that they have a red stop sign for trail users. Those signs also are unambiguous. They do not mean, "Calculate whether you can make it across the road before you get hit and then decide whether you actually have to stop."
Thanks, Dr Gridlock, for a succinct and comprehensive explanation of why stop signs on crosswalks are dangerous, unfair, and quite possibly illegal.
The problem is it's not clear at all what they *do* mean. If they're intended to explicitly remove the pedestrian right-of-way from the crosswalk, there needs to be legislation that does so. And a sign that says, "Pedestrians have no right of way here. Cross at your own risk."
Posted by: Dr Pangloss | July 30, 2010 at 11:14 AM
Dr. Gridlock took 767 characters to say absolutely nothing about the issue. I also don't like the way he used the phrase "before you get hit" placing blame on the pedestrian.
Posted by: Shawn | July 30, 2010 at 12:19 PM
When will this fossil retire? He's endangering cyclists by spreading his unique brand of uninformed idiocy.
Posted by: asuka | July 30, 2010 at 03:05 PM
"The problem is it's not clear at all what they *do* mean."
They mean you are supposed to *stop*. How is that ambiguous?
There's a difference between losing your right of way and not having the right to continue into an intersection without stopping. When a motorist arrives first at a 4-way stop sign s/he has the right of way AND must stop.
Posted by: guez | July 31, 2010 at 08:44 AM
I read Dr. Pangloss as specifically talking about pedestrians. In general stop signs don't apply to pedestrians. So while it may "mean" stop it may be as legally applicable as a sign that reads "Police may enter your home without a warrant."
Posted by: washcycle | July 31, 2010 at 10:25 AM