Of all the great mysteries in the world of driving (what is the difference between a traffic circle and a roundabout?), the one that seems to baffle Southern Maryland drivers more than any other is the four-way stop. The rules are actually pretty simple: the vehicle that comes to a stop first has the right of way. In the case of a tie, the car to the right has the right of way. If four cars manage to come to a stop at the exact same time, a quick game of Rock, Paper, Scissors is used to work things out. Coming to a stop for one or two seconds and then proceeding forward without regard to what any other car at the intersection is doing is not the proper technique. Nor is running the stop sign at full speed  because you think you can get through it quicker than the other car can stop and go. Which is exactly the technique my son and I saw twice in succession at the intersection of Billingsley and Piney Church. Had I been driving it wouldn’t have been so bad, because I could tell by their approach they weren’t stopping. But my son was getting his pre-driver’s test hours in behind the wheel and nearly pulled into the path of the second stop sign runner. What was a lesson in proper driving almost became a physics lesson on inelastic collisions.

So, to the two drivers on Billingsley Road that day, I wish for you only that the next four way stop the two of you approach simultaneously finds the two of you driving perpendicular to each other.