Pennsylvania
Fig. 1. This is an example of a “Stop Except Right Turn,” at the intersection of Streets Run Road and Delwar Road in Baldwin Borough. An actual right turn would plunge through the guardrail and down the side of a ravine. You might indeed want a running start. Photograph by author, December 25, 2019.
I have to admit, it’s nice to just run a stop sign when turning right, as Pennsylvania allows you to do where posted (example, figure 1). Adam Ismail’s photographs betray that he lives in a rural and comparatively rare flat area of the state,[1] but at least around Pittsburgh, the terrain makes for a lot of really weird intersections at the same time it more often than not constrains traffic to single, heavily-used roadways with odd turns.
Fig. 2. This is the stop sign at the end of Prospect Road, where it meets Streets Run Road in Baldwin Borough. Prospect Road has a fair amount of traffic, but Streets Run Road is a major thoroughfare. The sign tells you that traffic from your left does not stop (this is for traffic continuing on Streets Run Road from north to south). It does not tell you that traffic coming in the oncoming direction and turning right (that is, toward your left and continuing on Streets Run Road from south to north) does not stop, which is something you might want to know if you’re entering the intersection to turn left. Photograph by author, December 11, 2019.
So I see the need. But Ismail is right. The problem of asymmetric stops lies, as Ismail notes,[2] in unpredictability for everybody approaching the intersection from a direction other than the one with the free right turn, such as at the intersection of Streets Run and Prospect Roads (figure 2). Anyone unfamiliar with such an intersection, or just plain not remembering it, may fail to realize that that traffic isn’t stopping, even when the back of an octagonal sign can plainly be seen.
Adam Ismail, “Pennsylvania Has One Of The Worst Road Signs In The Country And Nobody Ever Talks About It,” Jalopnik, July 4, 2023, https://jalopnik.com/pennsylvania-has-one-of-the-worst-road-signs-in-the-cou-1850595477
Gilead
White Christian nationalism
Fig. 1. If one weighs by geography rather than population, Pennsylvania is very much a white Christian nationalist kind of place. Photograph by author, January 5, 2023.
Nicholas Riccardi, “Conservatives go to red states and liberals go to blue as the country grows more polarized,” Associated Press, July 5, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/polarization-republicans-democrats-abortion-gender-colorado-idaho-406b5a841d4d47c8a08cf054c38bb2a0
- [1]Adam Ismail, “Pennsylvania Has One Of The Worst Road Signs In The Country And Nobody Ever Talks About It,” Jalopnik, July 4, 2023, https://jalopnik.com/pennsylvania-has-one-of-the-worst-road-signs-in-the-cou-1850595477↩
- [2]Adam Ismail, “Pennsylvania Has One Of The Worst Road Signs In The Country And Nobody Ever Talks About It,” Jalopnik, July 4, 2023, https://jalopnik.com/pennsylvania-has-one-of-the-worst-road-signs-in-the-cou-1850595477↩