Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Charlie
Look at yellow lines the other way around: Consider a pass sometime, and if you decide it would be safe ask yourself why it isn't a passing zone. Nobody uses engineers to set speed limits, so why on Earth would you assume that they're involved in selecting passing zones?
The problem with drivers is that lots of idiots think that yellow paint has magical properties and would never dream of crossing it- even though passing in double yellows won't get you any more points than doing 35 over will. |
Flawed reasoning. I will admit there are cases where previously dotted lines were painted over for no apparent reason and some city surface streets have one that really only separates traffic.
But an engineer DOES help set passing zones. All the little dips and crests and bends in the road are calculated and modified when a road is being built. There is a very important thing called sight-distance that is calculated for every crest. This helps determine where intersections and driveways are allowed to be placed and sometimes the crest or the speed limit needs to be adjusted for this to be a reasonable number.
It would be a great folly to ignore double yellow lines on a road you do not know. Normally the sight-distance would not be great enough for you to correct an error in passing someone if there was someone coming the other way. Ex: Road has an unseen 5% down grade ahead of you, but you think it's clear. 100 ft away from that crest is 5ft lower, completely concealing an average car. With that car going 55 mph... in less than a second you are staring at the bumper of the oncoming car that was completely out of view before. The same thing can happen around a seemingly shallow bend.
Yeah, don't pass on double-yellow. Regardless of what the ticket may net you.
