Speed Up or Slow Down at a Yellow? It’s a Judgment Call

Dear Street Smart:

Common wisdom has it that a driver cannot be cited for running a red light so long as the car’s front wheels enter the intersection before the light phases red. But may a driver who accelerates abruptly to beat the red be cited for failing to “proceed with caution,” which is the meaning of a yellow light?

Dan Hillyard

Irvine

You surmise correctly that the purpose of the yellow light is not to speed up traffic. “Certainly we’re not encouraging people to press the pedal to the metal when they see a yellow light,” says Steve Kohler, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

There is, on the other hand, a gray area of the yellow rules. Say, for instance, you are heading toward the light and it turns yellow when you are a few car lengths away. Is it safer to speed up to enter the intersection before the light turns red or to slam on your brakes to stop in time and risk a rear-end collision?

Which action to take, of course, is a judgment call by the driver. And whether to cite a driver for speeding up in such circumstances is a judgment call by the officer who witnesses it.

“I’ll be quite frank with you,” said Tim Maley, a patrol officer with the CHP, “it’s open to individual interpretation. One violation varies from the next in that no two human beings see things exactly alike. If, in the officer’s opinion, the violation is egregious then, yes, the driver could be cited. A ticket is a warning. The bottom line is that we’re out there trying to prevent people from hurting each other.”

Dear Street Smart:

I like Botts dots, which help me see the lane lines on a busy freeway or highway. However, when Caltrans removes a row of those raised porcelain “dots” in order to realign a lane, they often leave a row of the bonding cement that affixed the dots. When driving toward the sun or some other bright light, the reflection off those disc-shaped glossy cement patches reflects the light and confuses the lane markings. They look like more dots.

I think it is dangerous, and it is surely annoying to fast-moving highway traffic when one’s attention needs to be undivided. Can’t Caltrans grind or sandblast these cement patches to make our highways safer?

Michael P. Locke

Huntington Beach

Caltrans doesn’t grind or sandblast those leftover adhesive patches because doing so would create more problems than it’s worth. Grinding the patches would put cracks in the pavement that would develop into potholes, said Maureena Duran-Rojas, a spokeswoman for the agency, while sandblasting them would pollute the air with dust.

Instead, Duran-Rojas said, the transportation department paints new markings in a way that highlights them to divert attention from the leftovers. This is the first time she has heard any hint of confusion. If there is a specific location you believe is unsafe because of remaining cement patches, she said, please report it to Caltrans, which will dispatch a team to assess that situation and correct problems. To do so, call (714) 724-2341.

Dear Street Smart:

Sometimes I am convinced that Caltrans engineers and planners never drive through or see the effects of what they order in construction work from the motorist’s point of view. A case in point:

Have you ever driven through construction zones at night and had the experience of being blinded by those intensely bright lights used to illuminate the construction scene? It is a real hazard for the motorist. No question that the construction scene needs the illumination, but safety of the motorist must be addressed. I have experienced having to slow down to a crawl because the light was set up on the other side of the concrete barrier and facing into the traffic. I feared running into the barrier, which I could barely see, and feared either rear-ending a car ahead of me or being rear-ended by a motorist not quite as cautious as me.

In photographic and movie studio lighting, shutters attached to the light reflectors are used to shield certain areas of a scene from unwanted light. I want to see Caltrans require contractors using those intensely bright lights to shield off the lights from the oncoming traffic, but I do not know to whom to write in Caltrans to get my message across.

Would you please publish the contact person and address? If there are other motorists who feel the same as I do, I hope they would join me in writing.

Mike Hatchimonji La Palma

You can talk to anyone in the agency’s public information office at (714) 724-2341. Or, you can write the agency at Caltrans, 2501 Pullman St., Santa Ana, CA 92750, Attn: public information office.

The aforementioned Duran-Rojas, who works in that office, said she has frequently driven through freeway construction zones and hasn’t noticed the problem. “When you drive through a construction area, there is a need to slow down,” she said. “Be cautious and be on the alert because these are not normal circumstances.”

If you can point out a specific area where the lights are too bright, Duran-Rojas said, Caltrans safety experts will inspect the site and make appropriate changes.

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic, commuting and what makes it difficult to get around in Orange County. Include simple sketches if helpful. Letters may be published in upcoming columns. Please write to David Haldane, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County Edition, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, send faxes to (714) 966-7711 or e-mail him at David.Haldane@latimes.com. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.