Are you an I-pass user? If so, do you know what the octagonal red signs mean? Come one, you’ve seen them. Unless you drove past them too fast.
We I-Pass users seem to believe our little plastic box allows us to pick and choose which traffic laws we obey and disobey. But where I come from, a stop sign means stop. Let’s take a look.
Here are two signs approaching a Toll gate. The first sign, shown here on the left, would indicate fairly clearly that the right lane MUST STOP. Not “hey, if you get a chance, make an effort to come to a complete stop. If, of course, you aren’t in any kind of hurry.” The second sign, located next to the cash basket, not only says STOP, but even adds ALL VEHICLES. If you’re jogging with your I-Pass, read no further; you are exempt. If, however, you are in a vehicle, then the ALL VEHICLES part applies to you.
Go watch these interchanges some day. I’d bet that easily 90% of motorists with I-Passes using this lane proceed without stopping. It would seem that those of us making an effort to slow down somewhere in the vicinity of the posted 15mph speed limit are causing far too much of a delay for those of you whose time is far more valuable than ours.
Will anyone ever adhere to these signs? If not, take them down. But as long as they remain, enforce them! With 59.6 million vehicles sharing one metropolis worth of roadway, it would be nice if we all played by the same rules.
Chicago CentriCity 