April 2022 – The Wise Drive

April 28, 2022April 27, 2022

Wheeled All-Terrain Vehicles on Public Roads

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.

April 21, 2022April 20, 2022

Motorhome: Is It A Truck Or A Car?

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.

April 14, 2022April 13, 2022

Wheelchairs On And Off The Sidewalk

Q: How does someone in a wheelchair follow the law about using sidewalks if a sidewalk doesn’t have any sort of ramp to make it accessible for a wheelchair?

A: This question provides an opportunity to note the progress we’ve made in the area of mobility for people with disabilities. Do we have room to grow? Oh, yeah. Are we perfect? No way. Still, the response to this answer as recently as 1989 would be quite different from the answer today.

In order to understand the law, we need to define our terms, so let’s start there. In 1959, when Washington law first provided a legal definition for pedestrian it was “any person afoot.” I don’t know about you, but when I hear “afoot” I think of the line from the greatest time travel movie of all time, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, when Ted says, “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.” Anyway, back then the legal definition of pedestrian was similar to the one in the dictionary: a person going on foot.

April 7, 2022April 6, 2022

Yielding to Transit Buses

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.