Dark Signal, Wet Pavement, and a Center Turn Lane
It is 6:40 p.m. on a rainy November evening in Grand Rapids. You are eastbound on a five-lane road - one through lane each way plus a two-way left-turn lane down the center - and you want to turn left into a hardware store driveway a block past the next intersection. The traffic signal at that intersection has lost power and is completely dark in all four directions. A silver sedan on the cross street to your right is just now rolling to a stop at its stop line. A pedestrian in a dark coat waits on the corner under the streetlight, hood up, facing the crosswalk. Traffic is moderate, and the wet pavement throws headlight glare back at you.
1. The signal ahead is completely dark. What rule now governs the intersection, and how does that shape your move through it?
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A dark signal is not a free pass and it is not a green light. When a signal has failed and no direction has a working indication, treat the intersection as an all-way stop:
- Come to a complete stop at the stop line, at the crosswalk, or at the edge of the intersection if neither is marked.
- Proceed in order of arrival. You are arriving before the sedan on your right, so you go first - but only after a full stop, not a rolling one.
- If you and another vehicle arrived at the same moment, yield to the vehicle on your right.
- Yield to any vehicle already committed in the intersection.
Do not assume the cross traffic will stop just because you do. On a dark, wet night, approach slowly enough that you can see a vehicle that runs the intersection before it is on top of you.
2. Can you use the center two-way left-turn lane to get around slowing traffic and set up your turn into the driveway?
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No. The center lane marked with left-turn arrows in both directions is a shared turning lane, not a travel lane:
- It exists so vehicles can decelerate out of traffic before turning left into a driveway or side street, and so vehicles turning left out of those places have somewhere to wait.
- It may not be used for passing, for merging, or as a lane to drive along to get ahead of traffic.
- Because traffic from both directions uses the same strip, driving in it puts you nose-to-nose with an oncoming vehicle waiting to turn.
Correct use: stay in your through lane, signal early, enter the center lane only when you are close to the driveway, and complete the turn promptly. The correct answer to a slow lane is patience, not a shortcut through the center lane.
3. The pedestrian on the corner is hooded and hard to see, and the sedan to your right is starting to move. How do you handle the pedestrian and the glare together?
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Yield rules do not switch off because the signal is dark or the weather is bad - they get more important.
- Assume the pedestrian will step out. A hooded person in dark clothing at night is nearly invisible against wet asphalt; your headlights may be aimed past them, and glare on the windshield hides them further.
- Stop and stay stopped until they are fully across your path, not merely past your bumper. Do not wave them through - a wave can be misread and can pull them into the path of the sedan on your right.
- Manage the glare: slow down, use low beams in traffic, and look slightly toward the right edge of your lane rather than into oncoming headlights so you keep the crosswalk in view.
If you cannot see the crosswalk clearly, you are going too fast for the conditions, regardless of the posted limit.