When to go at four-way stops, roundabouts, U-turns

Here in South Florida, we spend an awful lot of time in our cars, and our roadways are infamously dangerous. One study found that four of the top five deadliest roads in the country are in Florida. Another study back in 2001 found that the intersection of Pines and Flamingo roads in Pembroke Pines was the most dangerous intersection in America, though after the city and state made a few changes at the intersection, the number of accidents dropped considerably.

Maybe it’s the combination of slow-driving retirees and fastdriving yahoos that wind up the subject of “Florida Man” stories, but driving in South Florida can seem like negotiating an obstacle course.

Maybe that’s why our Sound Off South Florida initiative to answer reader-submitted questions about South Florida life has included so many traffic-related queries. We’ve already fielded questions about Floridians’ tendency to ignore their turn signal switch, and about why police can’t do more about texting while driving. But one anonymous

reader wanted to know whether the paper could provide “public service announcements for neighborhood circles and for fourway stops. People don’t seem aware of who has the right-of-way for these.”

Luckily for that question submitter, this has also irked this writer for quite some time. What’s even worse is confusion over who has the right of way when a car is trying to make a U-turn and another car is trying to make a right turn into the same lane.

So, just so you can have an article to paste into your social media comments to prove you’re right about who has the right of way, let’s take these three instances one at a time, with all of our information coming from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and Florida state law.

Four-way stops

This is the easiest of the three. If you reach the stop first, then you go first. If you and another car reach the stop at the same time, the car to the left yields to the car on the right.

If three cars reach the stop at the same time, then the car on the far right goes, then the one in the middle, then the one on the left, though we all know the one on the left will cheat and go just after the one on the far right, screwing the driver in the middle out of second place.

If four cars happen to reach a four-way stop at precisely the same time, the drivers are to all wave furiously at each other until one of them finally gets the courage to go. At that point, all four cars should go, then stop, then go, then stop again, until one of the cars makes it through the intersection without crashing into the others.

Roundabouts

At least, I assume we’re talking about roundabouts here, assuming our anonymous question submitter meant traffic circles in the reference to “neighborhood circles.”

Installing these little islands

of palm trees and scrub bushes in the middle of intersections not only keeps traffic flowing without having to stop at a sign or traffic light, but also beautifies the intersection and gives speeding, out-ofcontrol cars something to crash into to stop them, sort of like those big walls of hay bales at off-road races.

The right-of-way rule is trickier here, but I am certain that Florida drivers can understand it if we all try. Remember: If someone is in the traffic circle, they have the right of way. Just because they are not right on top of you, or because your car has impressive acceleration or you have someone in the passenger seat whom you want to impress, that doesn’t mean you can pull out into the circle ahead of them. If your entering the traffic circle means someone in the circle will have to apply their brakes, you’re doing it wrong.

U-turns

OK, this one is probably the trickiest because it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to some people that the driver who has to turn more is the one who has the right of way. It’s sort of like when you’re in the supermarket. Shouldn’t the shopper who just has a couple of items get to squeeze in first?

But that’s not how it works here. Florida law dictates that someone trying to make a right turn on a red light “shall yield the rightof-way to pedestrians and other traffic proceeding as directed by the signal at the intersection.” That means if someone has a green light in a left turn lane and is trying to make a U-turn, they get to go before you do, guy at the red light trying to make a right turn. Who do you think you are? Where do you get off cutting off that poor U-turner when I (or he or she — whomever, really) am following the law? Shame on you!

Anyway, now that we’re all up on who has the rightof-way, hopefully none of this will ever happen again.

Do you have a question you’d like answered? Please visit SunSentinel.com/ soundoff.