High temperatures are great for spending long, lazy days at
the shore, but they also make summer the season of occasional power
failures. A potentially dangerous side effect of these glitches involves
traffic signals – more specifically, the penchant for some drivers to run right
through the non-working signal. I can’t for the life of me understand how
one can treat NO light as a GREEN light.
It was during the infamous blackout of 2003, which took out
large chunks of the northeast power grid, that I became fully aware of the
depth of the problem. I had been taught since I first got a learner’s
permit that in such situations the most logical course of action was to treat
the intersection as if it were a four-way stop. It’s only common sense,
isn’t it? Well, let me be kind by simply saying that some see it
differently. Driving for hours around my Council District that night was
an eye-opening -- and frightening -- experience.
After some research, I was a bit surprised that the
“four-way stop” rule was not, in fact, a rule at all, and no law governed the way
motorists should handle such situations. It was merely a custom, and
while it was customary to me, to many others it was not.
I contacted then-Assemblyman John Lavelle and explained my
experiences on the night of the blackout, and shortly thereafter he introduced
legislation to close the loophole. In due time, the law passed both the
state assembly and senate, and on November 1, 2004 it went into effect.
So, for those of you who are not sure, or may have
forgotten, how to treat a broken or unpowered signal, now you know.
Approach the non-working light exactly as if it were a stop sign, and if
everyone does the same, the intersection will behave just as does a four-way
stop. Under NO circumstances should you treat a non-working signal as if
it gives you right-of-way, even if you are on a major primary street like Hylan
Boulevard.
By the way, John Lavelle was the chairman of the Democratic
Party at the time, which serves as just another example of how when it comes to
the safety and betterment of Staten Island residents, working across the aisle
is the rule of the day, and partisanship takes a back seat to common sense.