Odd Traffic Violation Question - PLEASE HELP!!

1) every state has unique traffic laws, so USA is no help advising you of whats legal.*

2) Mississippi is draconian about driving on the shoulder. if you are not in a lane you are toast. Washington allows shoulder driving in daylight, and even signs when it is safe and when to pull back into the lane.



http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.61.428

but

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=46.61.115

however note that it has to be wide enough for two lanes, not marked as two lanes.

* It is legal to drink while driving in Mississippi, but no where else in the USA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_open_container_laws#Open_containers_in_vehicles

 

If he could have followed you and wanted to stop you he would have.

 

Assuming he actually he blew his siren at you (you don't seem sure) and then didn't follow he was just letting you know you shouldn't do what you did and didn't feel like it was worth running you down to give you a ticket.

Trust me on this, if he had wanted you to stop his ego wouldn't have allowed him to not chase you.

 

If he wanted you.......he would of gotten you.

Forget about it......I would find out about using that unmarked shoulder when making a right hand turn. Check with the CHP or local police dept.

 

1. Do you think he was coming after me?

If he's coming after you, he'll go after you regardless of what the traffic is doing but do so in a safe matter. When I was on a ride along, the LEO made a left turn from a right lane to chase down a guy who ran a red light. Before he did so he turned on his lights and signaled the driver to his left not to drive off.

2. Was what I did actually illegal (creating a second right lane to make my turn)?

It's a common practice that drivers are encouraged to merge to the right when they need to slow down so that they do not disturb the flow of traffic. In your case turning right.

3. What happens next if #1 and #2 are yes?

Cops will likely to stop drivers that violate the most severe traffic violations. If the officer sees a car speeding and running red lights and a guy who failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign, guess who s/he's gonna chase down.

 

2. Was what I did actually illegal (creating a second right lane to make my turn)?

It's a common practice that drivers are encouraged to merge to the right when they need to slow down so that they do not disturb the flow of traffic. In your case turning right.

Wrong: The OP was not merging to the right. He was driving down a shoulder of the road. While traffic was stopped at a intersection, he says that he was driving faster then the other cars to his left. Sounds like the light at the intersection turned green just before he made his right turn.

He's very lucky that the cop did not pull out in front of him, then he hits the cop while using the shoulder of the road.

Each State & Local has different views on using the shoulder, around here it's a No-No.

 

Citations require your signature to signify your understanding that you have been issued a court summons, the "Promise To Appear" phrase that captions the dotted line. Without your acknowledgement there's no ticket to write.

I don't know how this works with photo controlled intersections because obviously such summons don't have a signature, but I believe when these photo tickets get contested most of them don't hold up. In your case I doubt the cop took a picture, so without your signature and without a photo, there's no ticket with your name on it. So fuhgettaboutit.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

 

Here in our town, people often move over to the far right side of the street over a block before the main right turn. It is also not delineated, and I tend to not move over that soon.

I'll have to ask the police chief about that the next time I see him. Though, the last time we talked, he was telling me about someone that he watched drive down the sidewalk (!), who told him the reason they did that was because the street was closed, and they needed to go that way... :huh: He tends to shake his head a lot at the drivers around here...

 

He did say that he pulled to the right and created his own lane and passed rest of the traffic 100 feet before the intersection to make a right turn. This seems normal to me. He's not passing other traffic on the right shoulder just to get back into the traffic ahead of his original position. He did make a right turn and is within 100 feet from the intersection. As long as you're not creating your own lane either on the left or the right for the sole purpose of passing someone then you're OK.
When traveling northbound, I create my own right lane all the time before this intersection and pass up all the traffic on the left. Done it in front of cops, never got pulled over because of it. As you can see by the tire marks that this has been done every day.

 

What you did was not illegal, but simply unsafe. I had a couple of occasions where I was making a right and edged right to allow the person behind me to pass, BIG Mistake, the lane narrowed again and I risked an accident, as the idiot behind me passed me in my lane not allowing me to return to the center of the lane, thus I had to brake! I am now wary of that area and never allow someone to share MY lane, because they will. I cannot rightly fault the driver behind as he also did not know the lane narrowed. Perhaps that was where the Cop was coming from? Perhaps he was thinking of only giving you a warning and changed his mind.

 

Maybe he thought you were trying to pass other car on the shoulder? Then realized that you were making right turn.

 

It seems to be a gray area, legally. It seems to fall into one of the defined allowances for passing on the right, but at the same time there's a section that says you have to pass on the right "in safety", and that is undefined.

IMO it is unsafe to pass on the right in the same marked lane as moving traffic because you don't know if one of the people you're passing is going to suddenly go right, and someone making a right turn like that would not be checking for traffic coming up on the right. So I typically wouldn't make a move like that. If traffic is stopped that's a different story.. but even then if it's more than a couple cars to pass I'll usually wait. Not too many situations like that around here though since shoulders are rarely large enough for a vehicle to pass, or there's on-street parking, etc.

 

This seems like the most likely explanation to me - did you have your turn signal on the whole time you were traveling on the right?

As for your questions-
1. Do you think he was coming after me?
Seems at least likely.

2. Was what I did actually illegal (creating a second right lane to make my turn)?
I'd say yes - you can not just "create" a lane - the road is either striped with multiple lanes or it is a single lane. If it were a lane then there would have been other cars using it as such. Had it been intended as a turn lane then it would have been marked with stripes and or signs.

3. What happens next if #1 and #2 are yes?
It has already happened so I do not follow. In the future if you do it I'd say at least be very careful - signal that you are turning and keep to a reasonable speed. You do not mention how fast you or the cars to your left were, or the posted speed limit. If the other cars are going slowly - say 5mph and you are going 10 you can claim that you were being cautious - however if they are going 5 and you are going 30 then it might be more problematic. The issue with speed is if there is someone actually waiting to make the turn and not expecting someone to blow by them on the right it could be dangerous - big disparities in speed are dangerous - that is why roads have speed minimums as well as why speed limits are all considered conditions permitting.