The importance of the stop and double stop

EXAMPLE

I drive to work on a scooter every day. I can only see advantages to using one: it is fast, I avoid traffic jams, I do not have problems with parking and it is more economical than a car.

On the way to my office, I always take the same route and I pass by a somewhat problematic intersection that is marked with a stop sign. I always respect it. The problem occurs because the cars that are parked on the street that I want to merge onto usually block my field of vision too much from the stop line.

A few weeks ago, I stopped at the stop sign like I do every day, but when I merged, I did not check well enough if anyone was coming, and a car that was going a little too fast crashed into me. I honestly do not know why they say that I was at fault.

Second chance:

The stop sign indicates that the street you are merging onto is a more major street and, thus, the vehicles on that road have priority. If we start with this assumption, our protagonist inappropriately entered the path of the car that hit him, regardless of whether the car was going too fast or not.

So, how should the scooter rider have acted to know that the car was coming? As the driver tells us, the scooter stopped correctly at the stop sign. However, it would appear that from that spot he could not see very well if another vehicle was coming down the priority road. In these cases, you have to make what is called a “double stop.” In other words, after the first stop at the line indicated by paint or a vertical sign, you must stop again before merging at a spot from where you can see perfectly if another vehicle is coming or not.

It seems clear that in this case, our protagonist did not think to perform a double stop, in spite of stopping the first time. If he had stopped a second time before merging, he certainly would have been able to see the car coming and he would have waited for it to pass before resuming his journey to work. Remember to perform a double stop when you do not have full visibility.