Unusual Traffic Laws in the United States [SLIDESHOW]
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From stopping at red lights to signaling when changing lanes, rules and regulations keep us, our passengers and other vehicles safe on the road. There are some traffic laws on the books, however, that may be surprising. From restrictions on honking at sandwich shops to jumping from vehicles, our country has its fair share of unique traffic laws. Here are some that will have you scratching your head:
Are there any quirky laws regulating traffic in your hometown?
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When I lived in Memphis, TN, it was illegal within the city limits to sound your car horn for any purpose other than an emergency. That was a half century ago, but I still recall how nice and quiet was downtown traffic.
I remember driving through Memphis in the early 1970s and sounding a (helpful) alert to another driver at an on ramp. Other drivers swiveled necks to see this honking fool. I didn’t know, but my passenger was aware of the local ways and wised me up: “They don’t blow their horns in this town.”
There’s a country near Dubai that has the same law for the whole country. I saw a youtube vid of the king stating the fact while driving and being interviewed. The country is tiny but magno rich.
Only within New York City are you prohibited from making a right on red except when it is posted. New York City also has lots of signs that say $350 fine for honking your horn. The fine only applies if you wake up some cops sleeping in their patrol cars.
hahahahahahahaaaaaaaa …
Or if you startle the cops while they’re leaving Dunkin’ Donuts and one drops the box of donuts on the ground.
This law is not too frivolous if you live in the apartment building next door.
There are almost no laws written that “anticipate” a problem. Rather they were enacted to “solve” a problem. The trick is to figure out what problem the law was meant to solve. Sometimes, they made sense at the time but simply became obsolete. It is still a law in Michigan that you must get out of your car to check an intersection before crossing. This made sense 110 years ago. Not so much anymore.
In New Jersey there is a law on the books that requires you to stop before the RR tracks and wave your lantern,
I tried that once and got popped for indecent exposure.
There is far too much confusion ,….. irrational local laws and incomprehensible mumbo jumbo in America caused by the absurdity of multi layered government echelons .. There should be only ONE standardized code of motoring rules ..The jungle of ridiculous local governments is akin to Europe of medieval times …The USA is a mess.
Ye gods, you got that one right!
Driving in the USA is not a right (e.g., not in the Constitution), so all driving regulations are written at the state level. There are a few local (town, city, incorporation, etc.) rules, but not many. Thus, the “multi-layered government echelons” are more akin to the various national laws in Europe. I’ve driven in England (and elsewhere in Europe), and know the driving rules are not uniform, and there are some regulations similar to those in the US. I have receipts for the fines imposed, to prove the point!
Not all rights are in he constitution. The right to sleep at night comes to mind. How could we codify all basic rights? We are an English common law based country, not a code-based country.
You do not have a ‘right’ to sleep at night.
just right no you have no right to sleep at night. i’d love to give you my neighbors they blow dog whisltles all night and make my dogs bark all night. turn the alarms on their cars on for 45 min at a time .ring my phone all night.police will do nothing.how ya like them apples…….
James, you need to visit a website [there are hundreds] that address the MISPERCEPTION that the Constitution grants rights to the people.
Just type in “does the constitution grant us rights?” into Google search and read away.
The US constitution does not grant us any rights. It protects the rights given to us by God or by natural law (choose one).
how about neither. The laws of the land are contained in the US Code as well as the various state codes. The constitution guarantees certain rights and responsibilities and is used to protect us from from government tyranny.
Remember, this is a democratic republic, not a theocracy!
Then leave if you don’t like it here !!!
Ouch! You told them!!!!! What a stupid pat answer!!!!!
Syracuse, NY has one traffic light where the green light is on top and the red light is on the bottom.
This is found in the “Irish” section of Tipperary hill.
That’s mega-dangerous. If someone is color blind they will run the red light thinking it is green! Ouch!
My grandfather was color blind a ran into that problem in illinois. He ran the red light got pulled over but the cop understood.
I live in Syracuse–the light is part of the “Stone Throwers Monument”. …since traffic lights were invented, every time the city tried putting the “orange” above the “green” they would get broken by thrown rocks. It’s a historical thin. People who live here are aware of the light (there are two others which have the red on top which are synced with that one) and the neither street where the light is are busy ones. I’ve lived here for over 25 years and have never heard of an accident at that corner..
The law i n the entire state of California is that horns are for emergency use only. We are a quiet state
we were until the New Yorkers moved in. They had grown up in cabs thinking the sounding of a horn is part of driving a car, like it doesn’t move without constantly pressing the thing. Please take me back before 1990.
Are you kidding me? Californians are the worst offenders when it come to honking at anything they don’t like. When I lived there I was shocked at the stupid things they would honk at. If traffic isn’t moving it isn’t moving. Honking at the person in front of you won’t change anything. Now they’re invading the states around them and bringing their rudeness with them.
Sitting at a traffic light is an emergency in California is an emergency I guess.
The “law” is that your horn is for emergency use only? Time to revoke your license if you can’t even read the driver’s handbook, which says nothing of the sort. It does suggest using the horn to make others aware of your presence and to get “eye contact”. It of course suggests not using the horn to let others know they’ve made a mistake – which I also recommend in case you want them to keep making the same mistake regularly. Yes, I should not honk at someone failing to keep the inside turn lane when there is more than one… they’ll figure that sh*t out on their own.
Who defines “emergency”. To me its an emergency when a fool cuts me off or doesn’t start moving when the light turns green.
California is a Quit state, that allows anything as long as your quit about it
Where did you read that? on the internet?
Hmmmmm. In NJ one is required by law to indicate by use of the horn whenever one overtakes another car. Obviously, nobody does this!
In Virginia its legal to drive slow and hold up traffic in the passing lane.
Actually, no. It’s a 3-point violation to impede or obstruct traffic. It’s okay to drive less than the speed limit in the “passing” lane, but not to drive side by side with cars in the right lanes so as to slow traffic. But good luck seeing this enforced
That’s why there’s bump drafting
Yeah. I tell my wife that all the time. She says ” why do they keep giving me the finger”. No clue.
In Texas if you drive to slow in the fast lane or slow lane you can get a ticket. Go figure..
In NJ it’s now (in the last 5 years) illegal to drive in the left-hand lane at a speed that impedes other drivers. Says nothing about them (or you) speeding at the time! It’s mainly aimed at people from NY and DE.
In Canada, it is illegal to honk your goose..
In Canada, can you be goosed while honking? LOL
And, in Canada it is gauche for your goose to honk you.
Every time someone uses the word gauche, god kills a puppy.
It would have been nice if the author had done some research and added some content to this one paragraph piece. Digging up some obscure laws and posting them would have been entertaining.
That’s what we’re expected to do.
It’s called crowdsourcing.
Why doesn’t AllState just list these “unusual laws” that they start to introduce and then just ask others to talk about?
[Admin]: Thank you for the comments. Are you able to see the slideshow? The image within the blog post has arrows on the left and right, allowing you to scroll across other images, each with a different “strange traffic law” in the photo caption. Please let us know if you cannot properly view this content and we will work to correct the problem. Thank you.
Slideshow? What slideshow?
It would be nice if the Next and Previous buttons were outside the image, where they would be much easier to see.
there are NO arrows
There are arrows!! There should be laws against letting morons use the Internet too!
The arrows were indeed hard to see. Your comment only indicates that, if there were such a law, you would not be there to comment.
I couldn’t see the arrows for the slideshow, either, even though I was looking for something along those lines. The arrows didn’t appear until I “hovered” over the area. Glad I was patient enough to get to this comment, as I went back and took another look.
I finally found the arrows. Poor website building
maybe you should make one arrow red and the other green…
long ago when i had my first car,1964, i had a 1955 ford. anyway in this part of colorado you could nothave anything danggling from your mirror.
Still can not in Vorginia
Ma. law also
California, Minnesota, Ohio and Michigan have the same thing. Or it was a way for the police to stop me anyway; they stopped me and said that it was a violation for having something hanging from my rear view mirror. Funny, never got a ticket for it just stopped so they could ask for my license, registration and insurance. Sad, aren’t there better things for them to be doing.
What wrong with “drivers must signal two seconds before turning” ? It may be odd in that other states don’t have this law, but seems to me a very good one! No one signals their turns in Albuquerque, NM, especially to change lanes (is it because if you do the person behind will speed up to block you (honest!)?).
I think they’re saying the problem is that 2 seconds isn’t enough time. If drivers wait that long to turn on the signal then I just wonder what’s the matter for them to be slowing down.
It used to be a three-second law until some legislator was cut off to many times and proposed a bill to change it to two seconds. Whey I started driving in the 60’s you had to signal a turn when within 500 feet and at least 5 seconds when making a lane change. People in Utah are the rudest drivers in the west.
So, in Glendale, CA it’s illegal to jump from a car. What if it’s an emergency, like the car’s gas pedal is stuck or you’ve been kidnapped? Are they gonna give you a ticket?
In Virginia it is illegal to exceed the posted speed limit when passing another vehical.
Thanks Ethel. Is it illegal to exceed the posted speed limit when not passing another “vehical”?
Ethel, that is the law, wherever you go! There is NO excuse for exceeding the speed limit. If you can’t pass without speeding, don’t pass!
Try that in RI buddy and you will see a finger, a horn and sometimes a gun
In Virginia there is a law that says you cannot pass two vehicles abreast. I’ve been in Virginia for 40 years and still don’t know what that means. I’m assuming a 3 lane road and you can’t pass two cars at once (one in each of the other two lanes), which would be stupid. Or, that you can’t pass two or more cars at once on a two lane road. Either way, makes no sense.
It means you can’t use the shoulder to pass; there are similar regulations and unwritten laws in many states. The good thing is you can’t get a ticket if the law is unwritten; bad thing, they will find something to either ticket you or impound your car.
I assume it means It’s illegal on a 2-lane road to try to overtake a vehicle that is itself trying to overtake a vehicle. Imagine a country road with speeding car C coming upon slow wagon A being passed by moderately moving car B. C has to let B get ahead of A before it has the legal right to zoom pass them both.
in Johnson Creek WI you don’t need a horn to blow. Just turn your bass amp and volume up and the doper and high school mentality shines right through any impeding obstacles. There are a few of thes Einstein’s around here that are what is referred to as small town heroes. -Charlie-
Massachusetts still has a law on the boks that says if you come across a rider on a horse, you must stop until the rider and animal pass. However, if the animal is frightened you must disassemble your vehicle and remove it from the animals path.
Virginia had the law 55 for trucks and 65 for cars, but then changed it to 65 for both, accident rates went down. 5 states have the most truck accidents and they all have 55 for trucks, 65 for cars. But money is made. States with no trucks in left lane laws, have bigger problems with traffic jams. Keeping the trucks in the lanes where people merge the most, slow traffic, no brainer there, again money is made. Arkansas has signs,, “to insure pavement wear, trucks are to use the left lanes of the interstate. This sign is only at the scales and cars never see it. You can figure out how well it is recieved. It is illegal to back onto or off of a public highway, but yet how many driveways can you count that you have too?
Too many cops are predators, and OTR drivers are their favorite prey.
Here’s three more, in NY on 84, supposedly the state troopers there think your log book for trucks HAS to be logged on NY time zone, not home terminal. Try to figure out how to change that just for NY. Fine is $ 280.00 for not logging NY time. this was 15 years ago. In CA you can be fined for excessive oil on motor, whether it leaks or not, just a warning is not free, if you do not send in $ 10.00 with the warning it turns into $ 50.00. They were two weeks off having a law no trucks in Los Angeles during the hours of 6 am to 6 pm. Then somebody decided to count trucks, they would have had them backed up to Arizona trying to get thru.
Federal Regulations. Idaho was enforcing a law, which you had to have a card, that says you were allowed to legally park your truck. Not having this card was $ 160.00.
CA can write you a ticket for speeding, if the cop estimates your speed. Radar gun on dash but does NOT have to use it.
THe US Constitution does not confer rights on the people. All rights are assumed to already belong to the people and the States. To remind people of that the 10th amendment was added. The Constitution instead confers the rights of the Federal Government. If its not in the Constitution the Fed can’t do it or regulate it.
Sure wish that the politicians would read that part.
The 10th amendment is meaningless:
“The Tenth Amendment was intended to confirm the understanding of the people at the time the Constitution was adopted, that powers not granted to the United States were reserved to the states or to the people. It added nothing to the instrument as originally ratified and has no limited and special operation, as is contended, upon the people’s delegation by article 5 of certain functions to the Congress.”
- Supreme Court decision in UNITED STATES v. SPRAGUE (1931)
that is funny! You’re right. I mean, I understand a couple of seconds of wait for the person in front to realize they have to go, but when it has been 15 or 20 seconds, and they don’t move, lay on that horn!! LOL
If I remember correctly—-it is against the law in Helena, Montana to ride a giraffe on Main Street.
I am from Boston. I have worn out a car horn.
I found no slideshow
Glad I don’t live in Boston
In the town where i grew up it was illegal to drive your horse and buggy across the bridge. You had to get off and lead the horse on foot. In IL it is illegal to hang anything from your rear view mirror.In MO it used to be the law that you had to sound your horn when you passed someone.
in hanover,ohio theres a tunnel under rxr tracks a sign sound your horn before entering tunnel. in grandville, ohio if your horse poops in the street and you don’t clean it up you will spend the the night in jail.
in my small town which as large rural Amish population, one od the big conflicts these days is whether the Amish should pick u[p after their horses the way people do after their dogs;
I am from Cincinnati and it seems seeing/hearing a car coming down the road with overly loud music is more common than not. I went to San Fran and I was in a rental car and I had a CD with some 70s music(Play that funky Music) and I had it blaring in my car. Everyone looked at me and some homeless guy stated he musta woke up on the “right side of the street”. All the cities I have driven thru, I never notice cars “vibrating down the road” like in Cincinnati.
I don’t know if this fit’s,but in Missouri it is against the law to marry your horse.Was there a problem?
This os course, does not apply to the crazy taxi drivers in New York? They can hardly wait for the light to turn green before they start honking
In PA, still on the books:
Any motorist who sights a team of horses coming toward him must pull well off the road, cover his car with a blanket or canvas that blends with the countryside, and let the horses pass.
Motorized vehicles are not to be sold on Sundays.
In Pittsburgh, It is still illegal to bring a donkey or a mule onto a trolley car.
In Tarentum, Horses are not to be tied to parking meters.
In Carlisle, In the middle of town, one must pay a fee of $50 dollars a year to park on a particular block.
In Alabama, It is legal to drive the wrong way down a one-way street if you have a lantern attached to the front of your automobile.
In Milwaukee WI it is illegal to park a car on a city street with a “For Sale” sign posted on or in the car where it is visible to passers by. That restriction does not apply, however if the car is parked on private property or in motion.
In Klamath Falls, Oregon – there are still signs posted that “Horses May Not Be Ridden on Sidewalks”. Never mind there are no pastures or barns anywhere nearby.