Dirt_Dad
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I was nearly taken out by one of the two stolen Stop signs I encountered today. On the way back home today I revisited the site and was not surprised to find an empty sign post standing there.
I approached this T in the road, notice no stop sign and kept right on rolling. I did look left when I could finally see down the road and saw a car coming. I had no idea how fast, so I stayed on the right edge of the road and nailed the throttle just in case. I could hear the car behind me briefly lock up the tires.
This happened in the panhandle region of West Virginia where it is very common for the Stop signs to have a small sign underneath them that reads "Except if turning right". If fact I had just gone though one of those right turn exception signs about 5 minutes earlier. It does train your mind to accept turning right when you would normally expect to be stopping.
Missing Stop sign or not, ultimately this was a failure of defensive riding on my part. Making the assumption that crossing traffic would have the Stop sign was my huge error that nearly took me out. Had a lot of time to think about the episode as I continued my ride. Trying to figure out what lesson I needed to take away from the event. Decided I must be more alert to spotting the Stop signs for the roads intersecting mine. It was a timely lesson because about 2 hours later my road intersected another and I could spot only one Stop sign. Not facing me, but facing the oncoming lane of traffic on the other side of the intersecting road. I decided to stop. When did I was there next to another naked sign post. I think they have a real signage theft issue in this part of WV.
Be careful out there. You never know when someone may have decided their need for a room decoration is more important than your traffic control device.
I approached this T in the road, notice no stop sign and kept right on rolling. I did look left when I could finally see down the road and saw a car coming. I had no idea how fast, so I stayed on the right edge of the road and nailed the throttle just in case. I could hear the car behind me briefly lock up the tires.
This happened in the panhandle region of West Virginia where it is very common for the Stop signs to have a small sign underneath them that reads "Except if turning right". If fact I had just gone though one of those right turn exception signs about 5 minutes earlier. It does train your mind to accept turning right when you would normally expect to be stopping.
Missing Stop sign or not, ultimately this was a failure of defensive riding on my part. Making the assumption that crossing traffic would have the Stop sign was my huge error that nearly took me out. Had a lot of time to think about the episode as I continued my ride. Trying to figure out what lesson I needed to take away from the event. Decided I must be more alert to spotting the Stop signs for the roads intersecting mine. It was a timely lesson because about 2 hours later my road intersected another and I could spot only one Stop sign. Not facing me, but facing the oncoming lane of traffic on the other side of the intersecting road. I decided to stop. When did I was there next to another naked sign post. I think they have a real signage theft issue in this part of WV.
Be careful out there. You never know when someone may have decided their need for a room decoration is more important than your traffic control device.