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@Jasper. The view you express about sign clutter is accurate in some places, but probably not elsewhere. A related point, which Ben Ross also made, is that these may be more useful than some of the signs already along the road side. For example, although MD-953 has relatively few signs, it installed alot of no-parking signs a few years ago, even though no one ever parks there.

I agree that the analogy with painted cross walks is not perfect. I was thinking about your original point, that the signs are just repeating the law and may lead people to assume that the law only applies where the signs are posted. That is a problem with crosswalks as well, as many drivers do not realize that there are crosswalks at every intersection whether they are marked or not. The crosswalk does not tell pedestrians to assert their rights of way, they may choose to wait for cars to pass.

In some ways, sharrows are more like marked crosswalks, except that sharrows seem to be a more positive message to ride in the center of the lane (or wherever the sharrow is placed) while R4-11 just makes it an option. On a high-flow road like MD-450, a mid-lane sharrow may be a little more aggressive about encouraging cyclists to use full lane than the state wants to go. If there is a mid-lane sharrow and a cyclist chooses to ride to the right, a driver who negligently pulls out of a driveway and hits the cyclist could maintain that the cyclist is contributorily negligent for not riding in the center of a lane with mid-lane sharrows.

I will also add that to a large extent, R4-11 can simply replace Share the Road signs, so that instead adding to sign clutter, they replace a sign whose meaning is unclear with a more unambiguous message which actually tells most drivers something that they did not know.

Ultimately, we have to inform drivers that cyclists have the right to use full lane, because that is often the safest to be, and make sure that drivers understan why that is so. Whatever your alternative way of doing so might be, such as public service announcements, these signs do not prevent public service announcements. I actually started by revising the MD driver manual when I had the chance, because new drivers have not choice but to learn the new rules. But I think that the new signs will actually make it more likely that the passage in the Driver manual will be studied, because the new sign will be added to another page in the manual, ensuring that the message will show up twice. The sign is also sure to help reinforce the message of MD's in-progress police training video. And the GGW articles alone have generated coverage by drive-time radio shows on WMAL, WTOP, and WAMU (later in the week)

by Jim Titus on Aug 7, 2012 10:26 pm • link • report