½ broken, ½ solid White Lines

[gonealookin]

Hawaii does use these a lot and not just on freeways.  Here's a common setup on a two-lane road approaching a signal.

https://goo.gl/maps/7Va8ehvVZihePEYd6

Traveling past the signal, you'll see that the solid/dashed is reversed, which prevents through drivers from jumping over into the merge lane and using that to pass on the right.

[jakeroot]

Slightly, different, but still of interest.  L.A. has modified marked unsignalized crosswalks on many major streets across town.  (But this treatment seems to be limited to city of L.A., as I have not seen it in the suburbs doing GSV searches.  But it does seem to exist in many places within the city.)

Anyway, yield triangles are used to denote an active yield to pedestrians, as opposed to the more standard stop bar that used to be more prevalent.  Button activated yellow flashers are there to get drivers' attention.  Signs to yield to pedestrians and paddles placed in the middle of the street.  And, to keep it related to the thread topic, double white lines to make lane changes illegal ahead of the crosswalk.  The double white lines seem really rare on surface streets, otherwise.  Based on the GSV, the markings are fairly recent, showing up about 5 years ago.

Cesar Chavez at Cummings in Boyle Heights:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0491061,-118.2129963,3a,75y,144.54h,89.75t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1su7Xx3rogFo53h-42J5Dh_Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

6th and Grand View near MacArthur Park:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0604857,-118.2771505,3a,75y,120.62h,69.58t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1svwS9wrUBezpF6CUQAKKDQA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

Beverly and Edinburgh in the Fairfax District: (no flashing yellow lights)

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0760431,-118.3641178,3a,75y,116.95h,69.61t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1seh9Xb7VuDJg50E2LZvzMfA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

I think the double white approaching a crosswalk is a great idea. Solid white is a good first step, but straight to double white is excellent too.

I personally think so because drivers approaching a crosswalk may not realize why the car in front of them is stopped, and may whip around them only to hit the pedestrian the other car stopped for.

It does seem like cars are less apt to cross a double white, although compliance is not 100% obviously (and wouldn't be without a physical barrier, I suspect).

[gonealookin]

I think the double white approaching a crosswalk is a great idea. Solid white is a good first step, but straight to double white is excellent too.

I personally think so because drivers approaching a crosswalk may not realize why the car in front of them is stopped, and may whip around them only to hit the pedestrian the other car stopped for.

It does seem like cars are less apt to cross a double white, although compliance is not 100% obviously (and wouldn't be without a physical barrier, I suspect).

When I was about 19 and inexperienced I did the worst thing I've ever done behind the wheel.  Whipped around the car stopped in the right lane, and fortunately the guy in the wheelchair in the crosswalk whom I couldn't see over the hood over that car wasn't crossing so fast that he couldn't stop for me.  40 years later I'm still PO'd about that one.

[jakeroot]

When I was about 19 and inexperienced I did the worst thing I've ever done behind the wheel.  Whipped around the car stopped in the right lane, and fortunately the guy in the wheelchair in the crosswalk whom I couldn't see over the hood over that car wasn't crossing so fast that he couldn't stop for me.  40 years later I'm still PO'd about that one.

I actually did something similar to that myself. I was riding in a bike lane slightly behind and to the right of a car. We both approached an intersection without crosswalk markings; the car to my left slowed for a pedestrian crossing from left to right, but I kept riding at the same rate. I didn't clue into him slowing for a pedestrian for whatever reason. Luckily the pedestrian was still on the opposite side of the road, so it wasn't close. But it reminded me to not sit somewhere that doesn't allow me to see the whole road in front of me.

I've seen a few close-calls similar to yours. Luckily most end with panic-braking, but certainly not all sadly.

[mrsman]

When I was about 19 and inexperienced I did the worst thing I've ever done behind the wheel.  Whipped around the car stopped in the right lane, and fortunately the guy in the wheelchair in the crosswalk whom I couldn't see over the hood over that car wasn't crossing so fast that he couldn't stop for me.  40 years later I'm still PO'd about that one.

I actually did something similar to that myself. I was riding in a bike lane slightly behind and to the right of a car. We both approached an intersection without crosswalk markings; the car to my left slowed for a pedestrian crossing from left to right, but I kept riding at the same rate. I didn't clue into him slowing for a pedestrian for whatever reason. Luckily the pedestrian was still on the opposite side of the road, so it wasn't close. But it reminded me to not sit somewhere that doesn't allow me to see the whole road in front of me.

I've seen a few close-calls similar to yours. Luckily most end with panic-braking, but certainly not all sadly.

Shortly before I became of driving age, I remember when CA had put in place a law that basically required stopping if a car in an adjacent lane stopped.  After the law came into effect, there were some ticketing blitzes to re-enforce the point with a plain-clothes officer attempting to cross the street and another officer in a motorcycle of squad car who would then nab anyone who did not stop for the pedestrian.  Given that experience, stopping when an adjacent driver has stopped has fortunately become second nature to me.

Obviously, the whip around is far worse, so the new lane markings were meant to address that.  It is interesting.  Technically, every intersection is an unmarked crossing, and peds may cross (if they choose to) anywhere.  At many of the intersections that I remember as a youth, there was always a marked crossing, even if there was no signal, on at least one corner of most intersections.  Then, I remember reading that LADOT decided to remove the painted crosswalks from all regular intersections and only leave painted crosswalks for signalized crossings or those that had special treatment.

[hotdogPi]

I remember when CA had put in place a law that basically required stopping if a car in an adjacent lane stopped.

This makes no sense. What if there's a line of stopped cars trying to turn left at a red light and you're continuing straight with a green light?

[kphoger]

Technically, every intersection is an unmarked crossing,

Not necessarily.  At least in Illinois, a T-intersection at which the terminating street has no parallel marked crosswalk or theoretical sidewalk extension across the through road does not have a legally defined crosswalk.

[MCRoads]

I remember when CA had put in place a law that basically required stopping if a car in an adjacent lane stopped.

This makes no sense. What if there's a line of stopped cars trying to turn left at a red light and you're continuing straight with a green light?

I'm not sure if you are making a joke, but I'm case you are serious:

I imagine that it is worded to avoid ambiguity for cases like this. I imagine that at signalized intersections, or where a car is obviously stopped to make a turn (signaling, in a marked turn lane, stopped near a driveway or intersecting road), stopping is not mandatory.

[kphoger]

I remember when CA had put in place a law that basically required stopping if a car in an adjacent lane stopped.

This makes no sense. What if there's a line of stopped cars trying to turn left at a red light and you're continuing straight with a green light?

I'm not sure if you are making a joke, but I'm case you are serious:

I imagine that it is worded to avoid ambiguity for cases like this. I imagine that at signalized intersections, or where a car is obviously stopped to make a turn (signaling, in a marked turn lane, stopped near a driveway or intersecting road), stopping is not mandatory.

Yeah, that's great if you can see the turn signal of the car that's turning.  But, if there's a car behind that one, then you don't know what's going on.

So, on a four-lane 40 mph arterial like this or this, if you see a line of three cars stopped in the left lane, you should just automatically stop in the right lane as well?  That's ridiculous, and it would likely get you rear-ended.

[mrsman]

I remember when CA had put in place a law that basically required stopping if a car in an adjacent lane stopped.

This makes no sense. What if there's a line of stopped cars trying to turn left at a red light and you're continuing straight with a green light?

I'm not sure if you are making a joke, but I'm case you are serious:

I imagine that it is worded to avoid ambiguity for cases like this. I imagine that at signalized intersections, or where a car is obviously stopped to make a turn (signaling, in a marked turn lane, stopped near a driveway or intersecting road), stopping is not mandatory.

I believe this may be the operative legal language.  It seems to have been in place since 1959, 16 years before I was born.  Perhaps, there were renewed enforement efforts when I was a child, because it seemed like a relatively new concept to me.

Universal Citation: CA Veh Code § 21951 (2019)
21951. 
Whenever any vehicle has stopped at a marked crosswalk or at any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection to permit a pedestrian to cross the roadway the driver of any other vehicle approaching from the rear shall not overtake and pass the stopped vehicle.

Perhaps there is other language requiring a stop, even if you dont' know why the adjacent vehicle is stopping.  I couldn't find any such language explicitly.  I gather that the enforcement effort in the 1980s and 1990s was meant to tell people that if a driver in an adjacent lane is stopping, you should assume that he may be stopping for a pedestrian that you cannot see, so you should also be prepared to stop.   To actaullly give tickets for this, there probably has to be a pedestrian actually crossing so that the above Vehicle Code section is violated.  As I mentioned in my earlier post, there would be a decoy plain-clothes cop acting as a pedestrian so that they could give a failure to yield ticket if you do not yield also.

Obviously, if you can plainly see that there is no pedestrian, and the other guy is simply stopping to wait for opposing traffic to clear to complete a left turn, no stop is required.  The problem, though, is what if someone in an adjacent lane is stopped to make a left (and is signaling left) and a pedestrian also happens to be crossin at the same time.  Obviously, if the adjacent car is stopped for no apparent reason, the prudent thing to do is to slow down with the assumption that there could be a pedestrian there.  But here the adjacent car is stopped for a good reason and the presence of a possible pedestrian could sadly be an afterthought to most drivers.

Given where I grew up in L.A., where many arterials have two lanes in each direction and a left turn lane, it was ingrained in me (almost as second nature) to stop if someone in the adjacent lane is stopping.  But it is not so ingrained if the person in an adjacent lane is slowing down and also signaling a turn.  My expectation is that he is slowing down for the turn, not for a pedestrian that is blocked from my view.

[kphoger]

I believe this may be the operative legal language.  It seems to have been in place since 1959, 16 years before I was born.  Perhaps, there were renewed enforement efforts when I was a child, because it seemed like a relatively new concept to me.

Universal Citation: CA Veh Code § 21951 (2019)
21951. 
Whenever any vehicle has stopped at a marked crosswalk or at any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection to permit a pedestrian to cross the roadway the driver of any other vehicle approaching from the rear shall not overtake and pass the stopped vehicle.

And that makes sense.

On the other hand, some states don't require a driver to stop unless the pedestrian is actually in their lane.  At least I think that's true.  It might just be their half of the roadway, though.

[Occidental Tourist]

Penal Code § 21460.

Don't you mean Vehicle Code?

Yes, I did.  Whoops.

[interstatefan990]

This story might provide some insight into the thinking behind laws like California's regarding stopping if a vehicle in an adjacent lane has stopped:

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2015/07/08/dmv-six-month-suspension-for-driver-who-killed-sammy-cohen-eckstein/

In this case, an NYC driver hit and sadly killed a 12-year-old that had went into the street to retrieve a ball. The ball rolled into the street, and the vehicle to his left traveling in the same direction had come to a stop. But the driver continued straight and passed it on the right, hitting the boy. Had he recognized what was happening and stopped, he might have avoided the accident. NY doesn't have a specific law about stopping if an adjacent vehicle has stopped, but rather, the person was charged under due care and passing on the right laws. His license was suspended for 6 months.

[fwydriver405]

Noticed a lot of ½ broken, ½ solid lines being used frequently in Québec from my last road trip there in May. Like in Ontario, it's used to discourage drivers from using the exit lane to bypass traffic and jump back in before the lane exits. However, I saw them being used in these scenarios to prevent merging conflicts asides from being used at exit lanes:

• On A-15 Nord / North, at the Route 134 exit, it's used for the left most lane to prevent drivers from the left lane to dive to the Route 134 exit. There's also an onramp that is very close to the exit as well.
• They were used on A-20 Est / East with the HOV lane ending just shy of YUL (Montréal-Trudeau International Airport). This one has an example of the smaller broken lines (usually used for lane drops or merges), as well as one with the normal broken line. The intent of this one is to reduce merging and diverging conflicts between the left lane and the ending HOV lane.
• Some interior lane merges seem to be candidates of this treatment, like at the A-73 Nord at A-20 (Route Transcanadienne / Trans-Canada Highway) merge in Levis, just outside of Québec. Here, the centre lanes have a chance to merge to the outside lanes while also discouraging those in the outside lanes from merging into the centre lane while merging.