Right-of-way is about common sense as well as the law
When I was a young patrol officer and wanted to drive my police car from a parking lot to a highway, traffic regularly stopped and allowed me to enter. I thought my community had some of the most courteous drivers in the world.
On a day off, I was in my personal car trying to drive from a parking lot to a highway, but courtesy seemed eons away. I sat and sat and waited and waited, but I just couldn’t seem to melt into the flow of traffic. I wondered if all those courteous drivers had evaporated into thin air.
Suddenly, I thought I was in the Twilight Zone because my mental state was halfway between reality and fantasy, with reality growing faster by the second. I realized that when I was in my patrol car, drivers wanted me in front of them, not behind them. When I was in my personal car, drivers didn’t want me at all.
In baseball, fielders have the rightof-way to any space needed to catch a ball. In this sport, right-of-way is about the word always. In traffic law, rightof-way is the legal right for cars or pedestrians to use a space first. Driving isn’t a sport, but right-of-way is less about always, and more about who is first. This made me think Abbott and Costello’s, “Who’s on first” whereas many people think, “I don’t know” who has the right-of-way.
In Georgia traffic law, it generally says that two vehicles might approach an intersection from different highways at approximately the same time. When that happens, the person driving the vehicle on the left should yield the right-of-way to the person driving the vehicle on the right. An abridged version of Georgia law says that if there’s not a stop sign or signal, then all drivers must yield the rightof-way to the driver who gets to the intersection first.
Right-of-way must have a different meaning to different folks. Beaucoups people act like the right-of-way always means, “They have the right, so get the heck out of their way.” The right-of-way is often as much about common sense as it is about the law, and the law often doesn’t even apply. People regularly walk on a 20-footwide tiled aisle in a department store, and that’s not regulated by any laws or rules. But frequently, they have to yield to other people who push their way onto the wide aisle from a 5-foot carpeted section of clothing racks. That has everything to do with common sense as well as everything about common courtesy.
It’s not uncommon for single pedestrians to forfeit their right-of-way to groups of people who walk side-byside or people who hold hands. There are times that common courtesy seems about as rare as common sense. Rightof-way is also about common politeness. Politeness, however, doesn’t always come to the forefront of a person’s mind when they’re engaged in conversation. It isn’t that they don’t care about others, they just don’t stop and consider the overall picture. Unexpectedly bumping into acquaintances throws the mind into a different perspective. Many people have to stop walking, give up their rightof-way or walk around a group of people who’ve blocked a path after they stop to chat.
Pedestrians are required by law to yield the right-of-way to any emergency vehicle that’s using an audible and visible signal. In the United States, the walk signal traditionally shows WALK or DON’T WALK or a symbol that lets a pedestrian know if it’s legal for them to walk. When pedestrians are in crosswalks displaying a walk signal, neither vehicles or bicycles have to wait in order to yield to them. But they must yield when the pedestrian is upon the half of the roadway where the vehicle is traveling. If the signal indicates that pedestrians should not walk, they are legally prohibited from crossing the street. Since bicycles are considered vehicles, and vehicles are considered vehicles, neither are allowed to intentionally bulldoze a pedestrian, even if the pedestrian arrogantly, ignorantly and illegally ignores the DON’T WALK signal.
There are a few times that using common sense makes more sense than taking advantage of the law. Pedestrians who are legally in crosswalks bearing a walk signal might want to relinquish right-ofway to trucks that are flying at 90 mph bearing cow catchers and hubcap spikes. If the truck driver illegally runs over the legally protected pedestrian, the truck driver would be dead wrong and pedestrian who is right, would just be dead.
Charlie Sewell is a retired Powder Springs police chief. His book “I’d Rather You Call Me Charlie: Reminiscences Filled With Twists of Devilment, Devotion and A Little Danger Here and There” is available on Amazon. Email him
at retiredchiefsewell@gmail.com.