Hacker News Reader

The way they deal with 4-way stop signs isn't "unspoken," it's the frigging law [1]. That law is exactly the same as every other state. This stuff is covered day one of driver's ed. If you "break the system," you're breaking the law and deserve a ticket, not just honking.

Moreover, the same deference can also be seen in Boston, which is a very walkable city. Although jaywalking is very common in Boston. New Orleans is a completely different city--only a small section of it has significant pedestrian traffic, and that section is often closed off to cars, anyway.

[1] http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&gr...

In Ohio, the law at a four-way stop is: one car, rotating clockwise around the intersection. NOT whoever got there first.

Makes you wonder, that your parent didn't know it is the law. Makes you wonder how many rules of the road are not known to be law, and mostly just followed out of social enforcement?

> a very efficient (unspoken) system of coordinating who goes when > approach a crosswalk and every car in every direction will stop and wait for you to cross

I confess to being baffled by these quotes: Are these not the law?

In every province in which I've lived, the rules for stop signs are simple: First in, first out. In case of multiple simultaneous arrivals, vehicle on the right has right of way. Only pathological case is a multi-road intersection with perfectly equal spacing between roads, e.g., four-way intersection of two perpendicular roads - the drivers have to sort something out, but it's such a rare case it's not worth solving.

That regulation works just as well for large intersections when then the lights are out: As you arrive, take note of who else is already there - you have right of way when they are all gone, everyone else has to wait for you.

That regulation is observed in Ontario, NB, NS, PEI, and, to a lesser or greater extent, Quebec (highway regs are provincial, but we're pretty consistent on many sensible points).

Likewise, pedestrians have absolute right of way wherever they are permitted to be. That is less observed, especially in bigger cities in Ontario and especially in Quebec, but is strictly observed in the Maritimes: Popup from between parked cars in Wolfville - or even Saint John, on many streets - and traffic halts for you.

FIFO is typically perceived to be the case, but technically the law in many locales actually states that each driver yield to the right. The distance at which a car is to be included as “at” the intersection is a little fuzzy, so in practice it often looks like FIFO.

Of the three states I've lived in (IN, NC, WA) the law has been FIFO. The tie-breaker for two cars arriving at the intersection (defined as coming to a complete stop) at the same time is "yield to the right" as you note. Are you sure you're not confusing the latter with the general law? Laws seldom have any piece that is "a little fuzzy" and are generally well defined.

No two vehicles ever stop “at the same time” when you get down to it. There's always an offset, and the fuzziness I'm speaking of is how much slop is included to trigger simultaneity. Generally, it's little enough that it gives the appearance of FIFO in practice, but the law specifies positional yielding. I'm speaking in reference to OH and OR law, here. The laws don't say “whomever stopped first gets right of way.” They say something to the effect of, “You must stop at a stop sign. If there is another car to your right at the intersection, you must yield to it.” The relevant phrasing from the Oregon revised statutes is “After stopping, the driver shall yield the right of way to any vehicle in the intersection or approaching so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard during the time when the driver is moving across or within the intersection.”[1] It's actually quite fuzzy. Many laws are, which is part of why we rely on human juries and judges to make sensible decisions about conflicts.

1. ORS 811.260(15) http://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/811.260

The Oregon law in the link is practically useless for making a determination pertaining to four-way stops (it looks like it might be referring to two-way stops with cross traffic). Whatever, maybe you quoted the wrong statute, I thought to myself, or maybe my not-a-lawyer brain just can't parse it. Let's go to the OR drivers manual!

"At any intersection with stop signs in all four directions, it is common courtesy to allow the driver who stops first to go first."

Good Gawd, "common courtesy"?! What's wrong with your lawmakers down there?

So I stand corrected. Apparently not every state has this clearly defined.

(As an example of a state that does clearly define it, first thing I find on Google is Michigan, which matches exactly what I described: http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/traffic_talk_wha...)

“What's wrong with your lawmakers down there?”

We also have a significant number of completely uncontrolled intersections in dense, urban neighborhoods. No lights, no signs, nothing other than “please drive slowly with caution.” So it's not just the legislators who are a little lax.

This thread is making me seriously concerned. Do this many people just not know basic traffic laws?

When's the last time you took a driving test of any sort (assuming you live in the US)? I've lived in WA for 13 years. I took the "written" (scare quotes because it was computerized) test to get my WA license when I moved here, and took the eye "exam" (scare quotes because how bad would your eyes have to be to fail?). In the 13 years since, I've had my eyes tested exactly once at the DMV. No written tests since, so I could forget or misremember a lot in those 13 years.

The last time anyone has tested my abilities behind the wheel can be measured in decades. It's a wonder we're not plowing into each other more often.

Based on observations driving around my city for the last 10 years or so... yes. Occasionally you'll even run into people who don't bother stopping at stop signs if they're turning, and god help you if the light is out. You'll sometimes also run into people who think that so long as they've stopped at the sign and at least one other person has gone then they have right of way no matter if there were others already waiting when they got there.

Driving around in SF makes me think not many people know about the law. For most people it seems to be either "I just stopped, so I go next" or "he got there before me, but he's turning, so he has to wait".

I got stopped for jaywalking in Munich, Germany. It was a single lane street, and not a very wide one. Everyone else was waiting at the light. The cop ran my passport then let me go after a few minutes.

> It's remarkable how different cities have such radically different approaches and attitudes toward pedestrians.

I think there's a blog article from Raymond Chen where he notes how the LA concert hall building is totally designed for people arriving from the underground parking lot, and claims that the minimum number of parking slots required for such a building by regulations in LA are higher than the maximum permitted by regulations in NYC...