I wanted to relate an incident that occurred yesterday that surprised me quite a bit. I was the passenger in a car attempting to exit Lakemoor Hills and go north on Alcoa Hwy from Montlake. The driver of our car saw an opening coming up and pulled out across the southbound lane. The car on the inside lane going south was flying (no surprise there) and laid on his horn to express his displeasure at having to apply his brakes. We proceeded across to the acceleration lane and entered Alcoa Hwy headed north. To our surprise we saw blue lights in the mirrors and were subsequently pulled over and ticketed. My driver got a ticket for Failure to Yield. The officer said that since the Alcoa Hwy driver had to apply his brakes and honk his horn, we were causing the problem by not yielding to that driver’s progress. We pointed out that the driver was certainly speeding, and the officer said, “Yes, I clocked him at 55 MPH but I cannot ticket him unless he is going faster than that”. What !?!
So I hope you take this lesson to heart, even if it is hard to understand who really is at fault.
Maybe we should invite the KPD Police Chief to our HOA meeting to explain why it’s legal to exceed the posted speed limit by 15 mph in a posted construction zone. Maybe THP, TDOT and the contractor would be interested in this policy as well.
Great idea- perhaps someone can invite someone from the PD to explain this – exactly why is the speed limits are ignored even in a construction zone. I can see not pulling out in front of a car and creating a dangerous situation, but it is hard to estimate how fast the cars are speeding and avoid that situation.
Maybe we should invite the KPD Police Chief to our HOA meeting to explain why it’s legal to exceed the posted speed limit by 15 mph in a posted construction zone. Maybe THP, TDOT and the contractor would be interested in this policy as well.
And speed limit is 40?? WTH
This is not the first time this is happened and people being fined, and is really unfortunate since most of us slide out, into traffic, trying to save our lives, as quickly as possible. We need to talk about this since we still have a long time before the problem rectified by construction. just by luck they have not seen me “escape” the intersection.
David
Fight the ticket. Use the inability to judge oncoming traffic due to multiple obstacles – take photos of the current arrangement of barrels and construction debris from the driver point of view. Cite other accidents at the intersection. You should be able to get records from the police department.
Further concerns are the traffic heading South are sometimes making U-Turns (No Sign on South Side) at the same intersection to cross Alcoa Hwy and a worker almost hit Elaine and I as we crossed while he was headed North on Alcoa, saw a hole in the traffic on the South side, then cut in front of us to cross without even slowing down or much less stopping to yield for us. Bottom line is it is going to be a very dangerous intersection for the next year or so and obviously, based on Kathy’s report, the officers are more concerned with protecting illegals than our neighborhood.
This is unbelievable. The officer literally said that the person was going 15 over the speed limit. It’s almost impossible to make that left turn in the afternoon without being aggressive. I would most certainly fight this ticket if I were the driver.
The officer admitted the other car was doing 55 in a 40 mph work zone and actually said he could not write a ticket for that?!?!?!