I was pulled over today.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by opendoor

No you won't. The letter of the law says the stop must be able to be made safely. If you stopping for a yellow causes an accident, then you're not stopping safely.

I was under this assumption but read the law. You're wrong, as was I. And you just made an incorrect statement, I can stop safely for a yellow but if someone is following too closely or not paying attention and hits me, that is their fault.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

You're right that he couldn't know who was driving. If a vehicle registered to a woman is being driven by a man that's enough of a good reason to call. Maybe it was stolen from their driveway while she slept. I don't think he needed to act the way he did after talking to her but I have zero problem with the phone call.

That would be fine if we pretended marriages weren't a thing. I've been married 22 years. My wife and I have been co-registered on every vehicle we've ever had together.

That's the same for virtually every married couple.

And that's also the case for virtually every kid who drives their parents' car.

If the cop thinks a car has been stolen, just pull the guy over, obviously. You're out of your mind if you think the cop was calling to see if the car was stolen. We know this isn't true lol. The cop was calling to sht on the guy for doing a hundred in a hundred zone.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Sliver

You continue to be wrong on this. The law - that I quoted on the last page - says this:

No, the law doesn't say that. The AMA page is a summary.

Originally Posted by Sliver

That would be fine if we pretended marriages weren't a thing. I've been married 22 years. My wife and I have been co-registered on every vehicle we've ever had together.

That's the same for virtually every married couple.

And that's also the case for virtually every kid who drives their parents' car.

If the cop thinks a car has been stolen, just pull the guy over, obviously. You're out of your mind if you think the cop was calling to see if the car was stolen. We know this isn't true lol. The cop was calling to sht on the guy for doing a hundred in a hundred zone.

We can't know why he made the call because the wife didn't let it continue, but you're probably right, and I said the same thing earlier.

We'd all be screaming bloody murder if JonDuke was pulled over for suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle. Again, a call, handled properly, would have solved this situation quickly.

[Ryan Coke]

The issue isn’t with police calling people sometimes, it is the why and how in this case that appears to lack judgment and professionalism.

Calling someone because you thought someone was going to fast for the conditions, then feeling that person was rude to you and bringing that up during the ensuing stop is entirely inappropriate.

A reasonable reason to call the registered owner would be if there was suspicion of theft, but I don’t know why a random car driving by would cause that suspicion. And then that is how the call should be framed, just as a concerned LEO that wanted to ensure the registered owners car hadn’t been stolen, but otherwise apologetic for calling them at 530 am.

If he was going to pull the driver over regardless of the call, then there wasn’t a reason to make that call as they would’ve discovered if it was stolen during the stop anyway.

The bar for calling someone should be higher than “I thought your husband was going a little fast, so can you tell him off on my behalf?”

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

No, the law doesn't say that. The AMA page is a summary.

Lol, AMA is a private company, dude. They've taught us wrong. AMA is not the government. Go to the government site, which I have quoted twice and linked to once.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

No, the law doesn't say that. The AMA page is a summary.

The law does say that, AMA is summarizing not the same thing. You are forgetting, Sliver got a ticket for doing something we all logically assumed is legal. Went to court and lost that clears up what the law actually is.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by zamler

I was under this assumption but read the law. You're wrong, as was I. And you just made an incorrect statement, I can stop safely for a yellow but if someone is following too closely or not paying attention and hits me, that is their fault.

Here's the law:

Yellow traffic lights

53(1) When, at an intersection, a yellow light is shown by a traffic control signal at the same time as or following the showing of a green light, a person driving a vehicle that is approaching the intersection and facing the yellow light shall stop the vehicle before entering

(a) the marked crosswalk on the near side of the intersection, or

(b) if there is not any marked crosswalk, the intersection,

unless the stopping of that vehicle cannot be made in safety.

Yes, the person behind would be at fault for the accident, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying if you're driving in traffic with people behind you and everyone's going the speed limit, slamming on your breaks to make a hard stop just because the light turned yellow when you were 10 feet before the intersection would not meet the standard of being able to stop safely. Therefore, the rule prohibiting entering the intersection on a yellow does not apply in that case.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by opendoor

If you stopping for a yellow causes an accident, then you're not stopping safely.

Yay, I went to school for this. What you're describing is the dilemma zone.

When a yellow light is on at high-speed signalized intersections (i. e., posted speed limit is 60 km/h or greater), one important question for drivers is the decision to go or stop. There is a zone, known as dilemma zone, on the intersection approach, where vehicles at the onset of yellow phase neither safely stop before the stop line nor proceed through the intersection by the start of red light. Within dilemma zone, a decision to pass through the intersection might result in a right-angle crash, whereas a decision to stop might produce a rear-end collision. Such dangerous area has attracted lots of attentions of traffic safety researchers since 1960.

I guess my point is that there is a narrow set of parameters where traffic engineers realize that you can neither fault drivers for stopping, nor fault them for continuing through the intersection.

The problem is that the dumb way the law is written does not correctly account for this hence Sliver's ticket, but most of the time there are not a plethora of tickets being given out for this exact infraction.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Lol, AMA is a private company, dude. They've taught us wrong. AMA is not the government. Go to the government site, which I have quoted twice and linked to once.

Sorry I got the links mixed up, but the Alberta government (when have they ever given spurious information) site has different language than the actual Act.

https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/laws/re...-304-2002.html

The law says you can proceed through a yellow light if it's not safe to stop. Are you saying you couldn't stop safely but still had the ticket upheld? That sucks and sounds like the judge took the cop's word. I hope you have a dashcam now.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Here's the law:

Yes, the person behind would be at fault for the accident, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying if you're driving in traffic with people behind you and everyone's going the speed limit, slamming on your breaks to make a hard stop just because the light turned yellow when you were 10 feet before the intersection would not meet the standard of being able to stop safely. Therefore, the rule prohibiting entering the intersection on a yellow does not apply in that case.

But you keep leaning on this part that is totally subjective on the part of the officer.

The law also says:

Drivers and pedestrians must not enter the intersection when the light is yellow.

That's crystal clear, man. So crystal clear, in fact, that they can - and will - ticket you regardless of whether or not you think it's safe. And if you fight it, the judge will just read that to you.

In practical terms I agree that of course you can't just immediately and magically stop before an intersection after a certain point, but hopefully you can clearly see in the wording you keep referring to that there is no objective criteria for that. There's no "if you're doing 80 you have to stop if you're within 38 feet of the intersection, "if you're doing 50 you have to stop if you're within 23 feet of the intersection," etc. There's nothing there to protect you from: Drivers and pedestrians must not enter the intersection when the light is yellow.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Here's the law:

Yes, the person behind would be at fault for the accident, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying if you're driving in traffic with people behind you and everyone's going the speed limit, slamming on your breaks to make a hard stop just because the light turned yellow when you were 10 feet before the intersection would not meet the standard of being able to stop safely. Therefore, the rule prohibiting entering the intersection on a yellow does not apply in that case.

It's right in front of you

Drivers and pedestrians must not enter the intersection when the light is yellow.

If drivers and pedestrians are already in the intersection, they must clear the intersection.

You can't enter the intersection when the light turns yellow. That means 1mm or 1000 meters, same thing. If you are already in the intersection naturally you have to clear said intersection.

The law as written is insane.

[Ryan Coke]

As for Sliver’s yellow light ticket, I think that while the judges explanation was not a correct interpretation of the law, he was basically saying he didn’t believe Sliver, and trusted the Cops version more.

It’s like if a girl says “I can’t go out with you, I have to wash my hair that night” and then debating why she had to wash her hair so badly.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

As for Sliver’s yellow light ticket, I think that while the judges explanation was not a correct interpretation of the law, he was basically saying he didn’t believe Sliver, and trusted the Cops version more.

It’s like if a girl says “I can’t go out with you, I have to wash my hair that night” and then debating why she had to wash her hair so badly.

Dude, I think it's fairly standard issue for a judge to err on the side of trusting the cop over the rando.

I do think the judge's interpretation was correct. He literally read it to me: Drivers and pedestrians must not enter the intersection when the light is yellow.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Sliver

You continue to be wrong on this. The law - that I quoted on the last page - says this:

You're not quoting the law. I am.

You're quoting a government information page which has no relevance to legal matters; the actual Act as it's written takes precedence.

Again, I got a ticket for this. Sounds insane, right? Yeah, I thought so, too. That's why I went to court to fight it.

Did you enter the intersection when the light was yellow?

Yes?

That's illegal.

That's the law, dude. Forget this "safe to stop" business. It's irrelevant if they want to ticket you. It's not vague at all. Read what I just quoted. That was cited to me in court by a judge. Yellow means stop. Red means stop. They mean the exact same thing.

Is there an allowance available if you can't safely stop for a yellow? That, unfortunately, is totally out of your hands, again, as per my experience and the exact wording of the law. Your word automatically loses compared to a cop's. I say it wasn't safe and he says it was safe. Okay, well since he said it was safe to stop and the law says you have to stop, you just illegally entered an intersection.

Did you argue that it was unsafe to stop, citing the law? Given that you don't agree that the law even exists, I'd assume not. And if you did, I'd assume the judge likely just took the officer's word that it was safe to stop and you lost because the scales are balanced against you in that situation. But that doesn't change the actual law.

[Acey]

Exact verbiage:

When, at an intersection, a yellow light is shown by a traffic control signal at the same time as or following the showing of a green light, a person driving a vehicle that is approaching the intersection and facing the yellow light shall stop the vehicle before entering

a) the marked crosswalk on the near side of the intersection, or
b) if there is not any marked crosswalk, the intersection,

unless the stopping of that vehicle cannot be made in safety.

The issue is that it's ultimately at the discretion of the officer whether or not you could have safely stopped. The two main steps taken to reduce the impact of the dilemma zone is that yellow lights last much longer when the speed limit is higher which you have all probably noticed, and then the all-red time before the next phase turns green has been getting longer and longer over time to minimize the chance of late runners causing a crash.

[Shazam]

Solution:

Put in a fourth colour. I propose mauve.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by zamler

It's right in front of you

You can't enter the intersection when the light turns yellow. That means 1mm or 1000 meters, same thing. If you are already in the intersection naturally you have to clear said intersection.

The law as written is insane.

Where in the Traffic Safety Act does it say what you quoted? What's Section and Subsection? You're quoting a government information page, which is not the law.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Dude, I think it's fairly standard issue for a judge to err on the side of trusting the cop over the rando.

I do think the judge's interpretation was correct. He literally read it to me: Drivers and pedestrians must not enter the intersection when the light is yellow.

That judge needs to go back to judge school.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Acey

Exact verbiage:

Where did you get that? That verbiage is not here
https://www.alberta.ca/intersection-rules

Originally Posted by opendoor

Where in the Traffic Safety Act does it say what you quoted? What's Section and Subsection? You're quoting a government information page, which is not the law.

Link to law this thread is moving fast.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Sliver

But you keep leaning on this part that is totally subjective on the part of the officer.

The law also says:

For the 5th or 6th time, that's not the law you're quoting.