My friend's wife got in a car accident today. Fortunately, she is fine, but the details of the accident highlight something that I have always distrusted about Seattle residential streets. Unlike most other cities where I have lived, Seattle residential intersections often times have no signs indicating right-of-way. These intersections neither have yield signs nor stop signs and traffic is allowed to flow through them freely.

In a low traffic area, the likelihood that two cars would go through a given intersection at the same time is small. However, this creates a problem. Local residents become accostumed to going through these intersections day after day. At first, they may proceed cautiously, but each day, their confidence grows that the intersection is safe. They start to drop their guard and their lead foot.

Even though the liklihood of colliding with a car on a given trip is extremely low, the liklihood of eventually colliding with a car (given that both cars are proceeding without caution) tends to appoach 100% certainty.

That's what happened to my friend's wife. She arrived first into the interection and did not see the car approaching from the other street. Whether or not she was going slowly or whether she slowed before entering the intersection is irrelevant. The same is true of the other car involved in the accident. In the end, neither of them was prepared for the possibility that another car would be going through the intersection at the same time and the result was a collision.

On residential streets in other cities, at least one of two intersecting streets will have a sign of some type. Either one street will have a yield sign while the other has no signs. Maybe one street will have stop signs while the other has yield signs. Then, of course, there is always the tried and true four-way-stop. Any of these options is certainly a better solution than Seattle's no-way-stops. 6:29:37 PM    comment []