The Wise Drive

Q: Occasionally I see a larger off-road vehicle cruising through my neighborhood and recently I saw one being driven on State Route 509. It appeared to have a motorcycle sized license plate attached. In and of itself it doesn’t bother me but I noticed that these vehicles have no fenders or any way to stop rocks from being flung back into any vehicles that may be following. Are ORVs legal for street use in Washington?

A: This question might seem like it deserves a simple yes or no, but once we dig in you’ll see that it has more layers than a Dagwood Bumstead sandwich. The laws that allow off-road vehicles, or as they’re called in the law, wheeled all-terrain vehicles, to drive on public roads have changed a few times in recent years, so let’s take a look at the current situation. If you think that sentence just gave away the answer to whether they’re legal or not, you’re only about half right.

Q: When we drive our 45-foot motorhome on the freeway, are we supposed to be going the car speed limit or the truck speed limit?

A: The truck speed limit sign is a little misleading; or if not misleading, at least incomplete. Of course, it’s impossible to put the full RCW up on a street sign so I suppose it’s the best option we’ve got. When you see a speed limit sign that says, “Speed Limit 70, Trucks 60,” the word “trucks” is a stand-in for more than just trucks.

Q: The back of transit buses have a flashing yellow light and a “Please Yield” sign, so I yield for them when they are pulling out of bus stops, but I see that many drivers do not. Is the “Please Yield” a request for drivers to be polite, or is it the law?

A: You don’t see a lot of “please” in the legal code, do you? For the parents reading this, have you used please in a sentence when your child didn’t have the option of refusing? Like, you say, “Please clean your room,” but what you mean is, “You will clean your room, or I’m not driving you to Ben’s birthday party, and there’s going to be a bouncy house there.” You say please because you want your kid to like you, but you still have an expected behavior and a consequence for disregarding it.

Q: Sometimes while driving on a freeway with three or more lanes I’ll see another driver change two or more lanes at once. I was under the impression that you’re only supposed to change one lane at a time. Is it legal to do a multi-lane change?

A: I don’t really want to answer this question, because I’m concerned about how some drivers might alter their driving habits for the worse. However, if you’re reading a column on traffic safety I’m going to trust that you’re not who we need to worry about.

Q: I was reading about how a lack of sleep affects our brain, and it got me wondering how it affects our driving. What kind of data are there around drowsy driving?

A: As I write this it’s the Monday after setting the clocks forward an hour. I feel like I started my day a half-hour ahead of schedule, but I’m actually behind. I could go on a tangent about the loss of productivity and actual physical harms caused by daylight savings, but since you’ve been reading about the problems associated with a lack of sleep you probably already know that.

Falling asleep while driving is obviously a problem. I don’t think that needs any explanation. Even if you’re at the point of rolling down the window and turning up the stereo to prevent nodding off, we have a safety issue. If you’ve convinced yourself that closing one eye at a time while you drive is a reasonable solution to your exhaustion, well, it’s not; you’re not a dolphin. But you are sleep deprived. (Nature trivia – dolphins can sleep with one eye open. They rest half their brain at a time so they can watch out for predators and come up for air.)

Q: I have noticed a high number of cars and trucks without their lights on in bad weather. But here’s the thing – about 75 percent of them are black, dark blue, dark gray – the color of wet asphalt. I’m clueless about why people with dark-to-black cars see no need to turn their headlights on, especially close to sunset on rainy days. I often don’t see them coming from behind. Any ideas?

A: I just stepped out of my office and took a look at the cars parked along my street. Of the 25 cars I can see, 16 are black, gray or silver. That’s higher than national studies showing that these colors make up around 52-55 percent of vehicles on the road. If our choice of car color is correlated with the clothing color choices for the typical Washingtonian, that makes sense.