Free Driving Lesson: Stopping your Car.

It must be spring. Idiots are driving again. Oh wait, that's every day. Today we're going to talk about stopping and four way stops. This isn't that hard, at least not to me, but apparently for some it is.

These things indicate you should stop all forward movement of your vehicle:





When you stop you car, that means it completely ceases to move. The following are NOT stoppping:
--your spedometer needle hit the pin,
--your spedometer needle crossed the 0 or
--you slowed down a bunch and looked both ways (or didn't)
--you get really close to stopping but your wheels keep moving
--you talk on your phone clear through the intersection without trying to stop

Your car must actually stop moving. You can tell this happens because there is a settling feeling in the back of your car. It might be quite abrupt the first time you try and actually STOP at a stop sign or traffic signal.

Rules for 4 way stops:
When you stop your car you should notice if there are other vehicles at the interesection. The vehicle that stopped first, goes first. If there is a tie the vehicle on the RIGHT HAND SIDE goes first.

This is not your opportunity to scoot past some sucker who actually stopped their car by rolling through. If you're going to run the stop sign just run it at speed it's safer and less confusing for everyone. The others at the intersection aren't lulled into believing you have a brain in your skull and that you'll correctly yield the intersection to them.

Rules for Traffic Lights:
Red lights. You are not supposed to enter the intersection on the yellow lights, let alone the red ones. Yellow lights are for clearing the intersection if there is no way you can safely stop. This allows time for the intersection to clear by the time the light turns red in your direction it's clear for the people for whom it turns green. Then we can cycle MORE people through every green light, with less waiting for stragglers and the idiots who get stuck in the middle.