Drivers Beware at Alcoa Hwy and Montlake

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.