Blogs are great, if not slightly self-indulgent pontifications, mere farts on the wind of the internet.
I need to offer you something. Not coupons or where to buy cheap knock-off handbags. Actual useful information! Sure, life as I see it, but with a bit of real world practicality thrown in. If you are visiting, check out the series “Public Service Announcements” I am, after all, here to serve you. And me, but mostly you. It’s a symbiotic reltationship…and again, feel free to print them and hang them in washrooms, at the library, etc…
Public Service Announcement #532: HOW TO TRAVERSE A FOUR WAY STOP
Many people are bamboozled by a four-way stop, despite having driven for thirty or so odd years. The stickered cars, “N” for Newbie (or Notsogood, or whatever it stands for) and “L” for Learning does not get you a free pass. You’ve just read the books! You are supposed to be re-teaching the rest of us!
I have a four way stop near my house, and there is plenty of toot-tooting at rush hour. Either no one remembers how to do this, or no one is patient enough to let the cycle run its course.
Here in Canada there is a lot of nodding and gesturing.
“No, you go.” See, I am waving my hand. Go. No, really, you go.
“Okay, thanks!” polite wave.
But then, everybody arrives at once. Uh oh. One guy looks at the other three, inches out, and guns it. The next goes out of turn, but he is an N, so we all just mutter Psshhh under our breath. The third is Granny, who is terrified and goes three miles an hour until she is safely across, conjuring “the Turtle and the Hare”. Then I go, eyes peeled, seeing the right hand turner gun it because he figures I am going and no one will be able to hit him. More and more people jump on this particular bandwagon until there is a steady flow going two forward, two across. Two forward…until an angry man (fill in age and stereotype of choice) honks. “JESUS, PEOPLE,” you read on the ticker tape between his wrinkles.
Doesn’t anyone know how to do this!?
Um, no. No we don’t. We thought we did, until that lady on the left just haughtily followed the person in front of her and then we all just LOST our MARBLES and went whenever we felt like it!!!
Sigh.
After you actually stop (that part is important) vehicles usually have the right-of-way to proceed through the intersection in the order that they arrived. In the USA, if vehicles arrive at approximately the same time, each driver must yield to the drivers on their right.
Can you see where this still causes problems? I think I got there first, but so does that lady. Do we get out of our cars and have a thumb war? No, we honk. Or more likely, we gesture, no, you go. No really. Go.
So there it is, clear as anything.
Glad I could help.