If you could eliminate one traffic law, which would it be? Or on the other hand, if you're a law-and-order type, what new rule would you impose on the rest of us? This isn't about penalties, like hanging people for making a left turn from the right lane. Given that we will always be stuck with bad and crazy drivers, how would you help clean up the mess?

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2000

Answers

Just *enforcing* the law that pedestrans have the right of way when they are *in* a crosswalk would be enough to make me a happy walker for quite some time. And I mean enforcing it as it applies to both people in cars and people on bikes.

Oh yeah, also getting people on bikes and skates OFF the sidewalks and the pedestrian paths in the parks that are very clearly marked NO BICYCLES and NO SKATES.

Bike riders and skaters here are just as obnoxious are drivers are when it comes to terrorizing pedestrians.

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2000

every intersection in residential areas (and even a lot of non residential areas) that doesn't have a traffic light needs a four way stop. i don't care if people have a hard time deciding who gets to go first when you get there at the same time, i hate having to wait for assholes who fly through 25 zones at 60. stop signs (that are enforced) stop that, to some extent.

is that a traffic law? it's what i want.

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2000

The one I'd create: sorry to be so specific, but I'd put a four way stop at the end of my block. We just had our fourth or fifth accident there since they put up the half street closure a few months ago, and someone dodging around the closure nearly hit me head on the other day.

The one I'd nullify or change: when no cars are coming from the other direction, stop lights work like stop signs, i.e., you can stop, look, and go. There are few things I hate more than waiting at a stop light in the middle of the night without another car in sight.

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2000

I would make slow people get OFF the road. or at least go the damn speed limit. Oh and Farm Machinary? GONZO. Jerks. I absolutely detest driving so my ultimate law would be that n body could be on the roads at the same time as myself.

Now that's a rule.

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2000

Amen to pedestrian right of way in the crosswalk.

I'd create a law about people their blinkers on after they have signalled a lane change. First, thanks for signalling, but please, shut the damn thing off. With my law, if you go for more than, say, 1/4 of a mile with your blinker on, you get a ticket.

And don't even get me started about people who drive with just their parking lights on...

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2000

Damn, Renee got mine first. Except I'd allow those Of Whom I Approve to share the roads with me, as I am a benevolent ruler.

I would also make all the bicyclists aware that the same traffic laws apply to them as to cars, and stop parents from teaching their kids the wrong way to ride. Or at least eliminate any responsibility for drivers running over bicyclists darting out in front of them, riding the wrong way (at night, with no reflectors, wearing black, on poorly-lit streets) etc.

And I'd make it illegal to have two cars stopped next to each other, facing opposite ways (for the drivers to talk to each other), thoroughly blocking the road/parking lot entrance/etc.

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2000