Driving along Chapman Street my first Ely summer, “I got the sun in my eyes and the wind in my face and it’s good just to be alive” (Neil Diamond, from The Jazz Singer). I set out this day to the Ely License Bureau, and I won’t rest ’till I arrive. It’s a delightful day: green grass; purple, blue, yellow, and white flower buds; crows diagonal swoop across the soft sapphire sky, cawing so exuberantly that even my closed window can’t muffle their chorus.
In the middle of my internal songfest and in the center of the intersection, I bring myself up short. What the? If my peripheral vision doesn’t lie (and it often lies), traffic signs are missing. I look left, right, straight ahead, and glance through my rearview mirror. True. Nothing there. Stop sign? No! Yield sign? Nothing in sight. Ground symbols? None. Oh, what do I do now? After a couple of moments hyperventilating, I calm my breath and continue safely on. No collision, no foul.
Then there’s the next block when I approach another uncontrolled intersection. I nearly lose control again because there is a truck heading toward the intersection. I breathe loudly as I wonder, Who yields? Do I yield to the person on the left, as we would at a roundabout? Do they yield to me on the right, as we would at a four-way stop? Does the faster person go first because of the science of stopping and colliding? Maybe we both slam on our brakes. Ack!
I lift my foot from the accelerator, creeping below 10 mph when I notice the other driver signaling for me to go. I wave and continue on. Okay, then. That was easy.
Because this is new to me and I don’t want to be a road hazard, I launch into research about uncontrolled intersections. First, I ask my husband Tom, a veteran of small-town Colorado driving where he experienced his share of uncontrolled intersections, about his experiences.
His advice: yield to the person on the right unless someone flies through the intersection. Then it’s a good idea to let them go first. To ensure the rules conform more to a four-way stop than a roundabout, I read several to steady my nerves. As Zutobi affirms in “Uncontrolled Intersections & Right-Of Way Rules: Who Yields?,” drivers yield to the vehicle on the right.
Armed with my research and the beginnings of confidence, I applaud the basic principle which sounds simple: the first to arrive gets to go. But (and it’s a big, anxiety-inducing “but,”) not everyone does that, which is why I crept along under 10 mph on Chapman Street.
Before reading the article “How to Enter an Uncontrolled Intersection,” I was tentative, not sure what to do, sitting at the intersection long before the distant cars approached the intersection. The other drivers slowed for me, pointing, provoking me to put the pedal to the metal and get ‘r out of there. That said, I realize I have the right to hesitate, to pause, to let other drivers wave me through with that universal “go ahead” gesture. And to breathe, slow down enough to stop if needed, and keep that momentum.
What began as a nerve-wracking exploration of traffic rules has become a metaphor for my new life in Ely. Now, I feel that I’m “in the know” when it comes to unspoken traffic rules at these (currently) nonthreatening crossings, making me feel even more at home.
