Um, yield?
Yes. Does anybody know what “Yield” means any more? I mean when it appears on a triangularly shaped road sign. The loverly little scene in the photooo, which I encountered while walking to my fave Plum Market this afternoon, is all too familiar. It occurs at least once every winter. I’ve seen it happen a couple of times. Once, when the beach urchins were around driver’s ed age, it was a young teenage boy. You can bet I pointed that out as a lesson [more than] a few times. It may have been a teenage boy in that case but I’m sure a few teenage girls have hit it too. And probably a few baggy old people like me. No, I have *not* hit the sign. I *did* once manage to throw The Indefatigable into a donut in front of Robin’s house. We had had a lot of snow that winter and they rarely plow our neighborhood very thoroughly and I was driving a 4WD vee-hickle, don’tch’ya know. Of course, I did not have the 4WD *engaged* at that time. Can you say overconfidence? Or sloppiness, at least. Luckily nothing was hit and no one was hurt and KW continued on her merry little way a leetle wee bit more slowly and carefully.
This winter? We have not really had a whole lot of snow but what we got from the last storm has stuck around. That was maybe four inches at the most and it was something like ten days ago. The folks that run our loverly planet do not seem to be placing a priority on plowing or salting this year. It’s sort of okay. I mean, I can get around okay, even with the Ninja, which has taaarrrrs that don’t particularly like snow. But it is slipperier than all getout on the side streets and I have seen a few other signs go down. Sooo…. I guess the planet is spending the money they’re saving on snowplows and salt on replacing road signs? Hmmm… If I had my druthers, I would prob’ly dyno-mite that whole library lot prodject. But that’d be a whole ‘nother story and I don’t *think* there are a whole lotta any Planet Ann Arborite politicos who follow my blahg but somebody might do the Google and find me and troll me and my poor little snowbilly brain would not be able to sort out my thoughts about that whole issue enough to reply with an articulate, informed response. Except that it was my favo-rite downtown parking lot for 30 years or thereabouts and… Well… Change is not always a good thing and if you can’t afford to keep the streets plowed, maybe building an underground parking structure with a conference center on top is not a particularly good idea…
Anyway. Yield? What does that triangular yellow red sign mean? Does anyone know? By this photooooo, it could mean go like hell whether or not somebody is in the intersection. Didn’t yield signs use to be yellow? And mean something like slow down and proceed through the intersection if there are not other vee-hickles? Anybody else old enough to remember that? When did they switch to red signs for yield?
G’night. And yield… -KW
January 22nd, 2011 at 8:04 pm
You don’t see too many yield signs these days because people don’t do it, even when a sign says to! Uncontrolled intersections are also quite rare although there were a number in my daughter’s old neighborhood in Seattle. The signs are red now??
January 22nd, 2011 at 10:04 pm
We had a driving safety class last year. The instructors started by asking a few questions, that we felt we should all know. One of the questions was, “What color is a yield sign?” The answers were strickly along an age line. I was in the Yellow camp. When I asked the same question at home, Ashlan and Rey knew the red and white, Carl went with yellow. Amazing how that change is seen all the time by those that drive, but not really registered, until pointed out.
From the MUTCD (Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices) In 1971, the YIELD sign was changed to use the red background you see today, along with the white region in the center of the sign.
January 23rd, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Apparently it took a while to be implemented from yellow to red, if you remember yellow. Wouldn’t 1971 have been about the year you were taking Driver’s Ed, Jay? We do have a lot of yield signs here in St. Louis, including one near our house that I almost wish was a light, b/c it’s generally hard to find an open spot, and I spend a long time “yielding”, probably much to the disgust of the racers behind me.