Ineffective Stop Signs

Soon after we moved into our house (about two and a half years ago), the city installed stop signs at the end of our street. This seemed like a great idea as traffic would speed down the hill perpendicular to our street and make it dangerous to get out of our street.

Over the time we’ve been here, we’ve seen people stop at the signs, slow down at the signs, and simply ignore the signs. I filled out a traffic engineering request to see what the city could do to get people to actually stop. Soon after I did this, I saw the cables on the ground across the traffic lanes that measure traffic. I thought that this was great and that the city was going to do something about people stopping.

Unfortunately I saw the result not too long after that. The result was that the word STOP was repainted larger on the ground in all 3 directions. This solution, of course, is quite laughable.

Last week I received a call from a traffic engineer (I think) and he explained that the council rep and the community planning group had requested a stop sign to slow down the traffic. The city’s job was done and traffic was slower most of the time; I do have to admit that if this was the goal, it has worked. The engineer suggested that I call the police and try to get them to come out and ticket people. Our police are overworked and they have better things to do than sit at a stop sign; the reasoning was that the route is used by locals and after a few tickets are issued, people would get the message. I don’t believe it, but whatever.

I’ve done my part to try to get people to do the right thing with respect to actually stopping, but without enforcement, the practice will continue. In speaking with a few neighbors who run it, they say that they can see in all directions and it isn’t hurting anyone. That may well be the case, but there will be that one time when someone doesn’t stop and there will be a serious accident.