Thought I'd do a bit of spring cleaning this week by rolling out some brainteasers that have been bugging me for a while.
Puddle flooding
With another rainy spring underway, I pose this question: If you drive safari-style through a huge puddle, can the water you splash damage your car?
What if you've got a small car and the puddle is so deep it rises to your undercarriage? Should you still go through it?
John Paul, AAA of Southern New England's "Car Doctor," replies.
"Water isn't going to damage things like wiring," he said. "What can happen, literally, is that if water gets into the engine, the engine will suck in the water. Then you'll have what's referred to as hydrolock. Air and fuel mix together in the piston, but then water will make its way in there. Like the good pump it is, the engine will try to compress it. This piston rod breaks, and all kinds of havoc happens.
"Going through a fairly big puddle at a fairly fast speed can literally cost you $5,000 when you're done."
Wow. So, what if you can't avoid the puddle?
Just drive through it very slowly, Paul said, and you should be fine.
Broken speedometers
My recently departed roommate, Ilya, threw this puzzler at me last fall. If you get pulled over for speeding, can you plead innocence if your speedometer is broken?
His question made me think of another. Is it illegal to drive with a broken speedometer?
According to Sergeant Michael Maffei of the Cambridge Police Department's traffic unit, a broken speedometer falls under the category of defective equipment. The fine is $35, but, as Maffei said, "there's no way an officer is going to know if your speedometer is broken."
But if you tell the officer it's broken, will that help you get out of a speeding ticket?
"After you get the citation you might be able to use that reason in court," Maffei said. "But for the officer issuing the citation, no, you're responsible for everything that occurs in the operation of a motor vehicle."
Which means you get the speeding ticket and the defective equipment citation.
Squeezed lanes
I often drive down a certain one-way street that's wide enough for two cars. The street becomes a two-way street after the first intersection. On the two-way street, there's enough room for only one car in each direction.
My dilemma is this: If I want to continue going straight after the intersection, which lane should I be in while on the one-way street? The right, or the left? If another car is waiting at the light with me, and we both want to go straight, who goes first?
When a road narrows from two lanes to one, the car on the left should have the right of way, said Paul Cardalino, a retired police captain who teaches motor vehicle law at the South Suburban Police Institute.
"If both decide to go straight, the person on the left has the right of way. You cannot pass on the right unless the road is wide enough" for two cars, he said.
Cut off
This one really gnaws at me. You come to a red light and want to make a right-hand turn. The cars coming from the opposite direction, however, apparently get an early green light. The first car coming from the opposite direction makes a left, cutting you off before you can turn right. Other cars follow it, so you're stuck waiting for the entire stream of left-hand turning cars to empty out.
I get caught in this scenario all the time at the intersection of Winthrop Street and Mystic Valley Parkway in Medford. It's actually dangerous because I have no warning as to when cars from the opposite direction will be cutting in front of me, as I can't see their green light. Beyond that, why should they have the right of way? Don't right-hand turns trump left-hand turns?
Alas, I am apparently alone in my angst. Clint Schuckel, Newton's traffic engineer, said many intersections operate that way and that the cars with the green turning arrow have the right to proceed.
"It's called a leading green. That's pretty standard," Schuckel said. "Maybe the intersection seems unique, but it's not."
Stop sign loophole?
I've written a few columns about stop signs, so I thought I had exhausted the topic. But last month, while waiting at an intersection, something fresh dawned on me.
The law says the first car to reach a stop sign at an intersection gets to go first. If two cars coming from different directions reach the intersection at the same time, the car to the right goes first.
Here's the curveball: What if the first car to reach the intersection can't proceed because a pedestrian is walking in front of it? Does the next car to reach the intersection still have to wait for the first car to go, as the law says, or does that first car forfeit its right of way because of the crossing pedestrian?
The same question would apply to two cars that reach the intersection at the same time. If the car to the right's path is blocked by a pedestrian, can the other car go first?
Maffei laughed at the question, saying it was a situation he'd never considered.
"I can't think of how to answer that question in a way that has any bearing on the law," he said. "The best thing you can do is try to make eye contact with the driver to get some signal to see if he's attempting to proceed or if he's allowing you to proceed. The rule is, drive defensively."
Cardalino, likewise, couldn't cite any law that would offer some direction on this. His personal take? "If the person is waiting for a pedestrian in front of them, the next guy can go."
What drives you crazy about local drivers? Is there a traffic rule you've always wondered about, or a pet peeve that never fails to annoy you? Send us a message about it at ciweek@globe.com. We'll check it out.
