Stop Bars?

No I am not trying to inform anyone to go to their favorite bar less. I am speaking of the big, bold white paint stripes you find at a lot of intersections. Let me first remind people these paint markings are there to indicate where you are supposed to stop for a red light or a stop sign. This markings are placed at specific spots for a reason usually. The reason may be to prevent you from being hit by passing vehicles or by vehicles trying to turn onto the street you are sitting on. Let us not forget that these stop bars are typically located prior to crosswalks which help protecting pedestrians as well.

Once you stop at the bar you may then move forward if you need to get a better look at traffic before entering the intersection and proceeding in which ever direction you are going.

The photo I am sharing is a specific intersection not far from my house that I passed almost daily. I often am approaching this intersection on the passing street just on the other side of the brick building. A very high percentage of the times I approach, I see drivers blowing right through this stop sign and right into the path of crossing traffic.

This problem is certainly by no means specific to this location. I see this dozens time per day all over the eastern United States.

I will save the topic of actually stopping at stops signs for another post all together. For not I just wanted to focus on the stop bar specifically and why it is important to use it as an indicator of where to stop before proceeding.