I posed this question to Richie Brown, who works in the city of Wilmington’s traffic engineering department, and he had a very detailed explanation. This was his answer:

“We have several of these tee intersections around Wilmington where one of the three legs of the intersection is a dead end. We’ve looked at other ways to sign these intersections, but ultimately decided to stick with the usual way to sign them which is to stop traffic approaching from the side or “stem” of the tee – in other words, the one approach that can’t go straight through the intersection. Placing the stop there is what motorists expect and is the safest location as far as sight distance is concerned.  Also, if the stop sign were on another approach, traffic approaching on Jeff Gordon

would not have a stop sign and may miss the turn. We also considered replacing the existing stop with a yield, but the approach speeds are a little high and the sight distance isn’t adequate for a motorist to make the decision as to whether they need to stop or proceed.”

Brown e-mailed a portion of the Manual On Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the document municipalities are required by law to follow. Engineers used this in their reasoning for where to place the stop at this intersection. Van Campen Boulevard  is the “through” street.

Section 2B.05 Stop Sign Applications

Guidance:

Stop signs should be used if engineering judgment indicates that one or

more of the following conditions exist:

A. Intersection of a less important road with a main road where application

of the normal right-of-way rule would not be expected to provide reasonable compliance with the law;

B. Street entering a through highway or street;

C. Unsignalized intersection in a signalized area; and/or

D. High speeds, restricted view, or crash records indicate a need for

control by the stop sign.

Date posted: July 16, 2009

User-contributed question by:
Jerry Leonard