[Talk-us] Best practice in Lane Editing 3

Jack Burke burkejf3 at gmail.com
Fri Jul 14 22:19:48 UTC 2017


According to one Georgia lawyer's website[1] as well as the Indiana
driver's handbook[2], it is illegal to cross a solid white line between
lanes.  Having said that, I would map Case 1 as shown in A, because I don't
think any police officer is going to bother writing a ticket if someone
does so when entering a turn lane, as well as for the reasons Marc
outlined.  I come across turn lanes mapped as separate ways all the time,
especially when the lane has a median separation at the point of the turn.
I change them so that the _link road separates from the main road just
before where the median is.  I will note that in some construction zones,
particularly where the lanes have been shifted temporarily, they do put
down solid white lines between lanes sometimes, specifically because they
don't want vehicles changing lanes in that section of road.

A *double* solid white line, however, would almost certainly draw police
attention if you were to cross it, so those probably should be mapped
separately.

A turn lane that has a painted median, however, I do map as a separate
_link because it is technically illegal to drive on the median, and routing
software needs to be able to alert drivers before the turn lane separates
from the main road.

Regarding case 2, I'm reasonably sure that it would be illegal for someone
coming from the south to make those turns.  I seem to recall hearing that
there is a legal minimum distance you're supposed to drive before changing
lanes, although I can't find it in the Georgia driver's manual.  I
periodically run into some local police officers who can probably answer
that for me, at least as the law is in Georgia.  I think every state does
have a minimum legal distance, which varies from state to state, that
you're supposed to signal your turn before making it, and there is simply
no way a driver coming from the south would be able to meet that
requirement.  In the picture provided, I would actually "cheat" the link
road a little so that it connects to the main road just before where the
side road comes in.  It looks like a difference of only a few feet in the
picture, so I don't think that's a critical enough distance where cheating
the connection point is an issue.  (If it were more than just a few feet,
then no, I wouldn't cheat the connection point.)

--jack

[1]
http://www.lawofficeofscottmiller.com/faqs/is-it-legal-for-my-vehicle-to-cross-a-solid-white-line-.cfm
[2] https://www.in.gov/bmv/files/Drivers_Manual_Chapter_5.pdf



On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 4:02 PM, Marc Gemis <marc.gemis at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 10:14 PM, Eric Ladner <eric.ladner at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Just to play Devil's advocate:  B is probably more TECHNICALLY correct
> since
> > a solid white line indicates "lane change discouraged, but not illegal"
> and
> > you'd probably want the routing software to indicate where the turn lane
> > starts, not 200 feet later (esp. in heavy traffic and the lane's already
> > full of cars).
>
> In Belgium (and other European countries), it is illegal to cross a
> solid white line under normal circumstances.
>
> An OSM way represents a separate street, not a lane. When you start
> representing lanes as ways, you break data consumers that count ways,
> or that really need to know whether the physical divider is. Emergency
> vehicles are not interested in solid white lines, but are interested
> in physical dividers that they cannot cross.
>
> For all those reasons, I will not map a separate way for a lane
> separated by a solid line. I do hope that the  but routing apps should
> start implementing change:lane, which is the proper way to map it
> IMHO.
>
> regards
>
> m
>
> (*) in some special case
>
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