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Through the No-Lights

One interesting, if unsettling, thing about traffic is that people often have a shaky grasp of the traffic code, or completely opposing views of what the “right” thing to do is. This piece from the Grand Rapids Press notes that when traffic lights malfunction, the average driver tends to treat the new condition as a four-way stop. But Michigan law, it seems, says that major roads and state highways have right-of-way preference. Some people want the law changed, others think it works fine.

But these differences of opinion can literally collide, as in the crash cited in the article. I was struck by the almost Beckett-like usage of the term “no-light,” hereby defined as: A state in which traffic lights are non-functioning.

“The westbound driver, James Boldi, 29, of Grand Rapids, was blamed, but, “I slowed down, stopped,” but the other driver didn’t. “The guy just drove through the no-light.”

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 7:45 am and is filed under Traffic Engineering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Through the No-Lights”

  1. Yokota Fritz Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:29 am

    Michigan’s law goes against the practice that I’ve heard of in the rest of the United States.

    For very busy roads, people trying to go through from side streets will never get out!

  2. Bob Bigboote Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 3:42 pm

    California law sez to treat a malfunctioning traffic light as a stop sign.

    Not sure what the Uniform Vehicle Code sez.

    Glad I haven’t driven in Michigan in years!

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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

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