Hot topics from readers

As always, I appreciate getting your comments via email — that way, I know what’s really on your minds.  This week, a few readers relayed points of interest.

N.E. complained about some seriously slow driving when he wrote, “I’ve noticed in the past 2 weeks there is a gravel haul on 90 W then turning onto Hwy2 W by some very old trucks.  They’re running what looks to be late 50s maybe early 60s tandem 10yd dumps pulling tandem 10yd trailers uphill at a robust 20mph.  With our inattentive drivers whizzing uphill at 60 + then all of a sudden the lane in front of them is blocked so they jam on the brakes and in a few seconds you have a string of these cars all in a row going 25mph and then someone jumps out in the next lane with no speed and it’s mayhem.  I thought vehicles on the freeway were supposed to maintain 45mph but not these truckers.”

I too thought that minimum freeway speed was 45 mph, and that is certainly a common-sense low limit for reasons laid out by N.E.  However, unless the Department of Transportation has posted minimum speed signage, Revised Code of Washington 46.61.425 is in play.  In part, it reads:  “No person shall drive a motor vehicle at such a slow speed as to impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic except when reduced speed is necessary for safe operation or in compliance with law.”  So, it would be up to a law officer to determine if the vehicle in question was in violation of that text.

The same RCW states conditions for posting minimum speed signage, reading: “Whenever the secretary of transportation or local authorities within their respective jurisdictions determine on the basis of an engineering and traffic investigation that slow speeds on any part of a highway unreasonably impede the normal movement of traffic, the secretary or such local authority may determine and declare a minimum speed limit thereat which shall be effective when appropriate signs giving notice thereof are erected.”

J.C. sought a resolution to a right of way quandary, asking, “When approaching an intersection that has no stop signs or stop lights and no yield signs, who has the right of way?  I believe that the person on the right always has the right of way, my husband maintains that the person that gets to the intersection first has the right of way.”

The intersections J.C. described are commonly called “unmarked intersections,” and the RCW applicable to those intersections is 46.61.180, Vehicle approaching intersection.  It states, “When two vehicles approach or enter an intersection from different highways at approximately the same time, the driver of the vehicle on the left shall yield the right-of-way to the vehicle on the right.

J.C.’s husband may be thinking of a four-way stop, where the driver arriving first has the right of way.  However, if vehicles become stopped at the same time at a four-way stop, right of way reverts to the driver on the right.

If a vehicle comes to an unmarked intersection appreciably before another, it may have right of way.  If the vehicles are within one another’s sight, though, they would be considered to be at the intersection “approximately” at the same time (as the law notes), requiring the driver of the vehicle on the left to yield to the driver of the vehicle on the right.  If a driver were ticketed under that law, or cited under that law for causing an accident, they would have the opportunity to challenge what is “approximately at the same time” in traffic court.

D.M. sent some examples of instances where drivers fail to read signs, and wondered why.  All I can do is commiserate with him, and wonder the same thing.  More than once, I’ve been horn-prompted to take a right turn onto 29th from Perry during a red light indication even though a very visible sign reading “NO TURN ON RED” faces motorists there.

D.M.’s concern of this driver failure is well-founded.  Offending drivers are either not reading signs, or are reading them and disregarding their messages.

Readers may contact Bill Love via e-mail at precisiondriving@spokesman.com.