Do I Have to Obey Stop Signs in the Costco Parking Lot?

I’ve noticed stop signs in the parking lot at Costco, Home Depot, etc. I figure these signs weren’t put there by the city, so I don’t have to obey them. When construction workers hold up “Slow” signs because of road work, I can ignore that, too. I checked. There’s nothing in the driver manual about obeying construction workers or signs on private property. —A Concerned Citizen

I must say, Citizen, you don’t sound very concerned to me. While a small part of me wants to admire your Vin Diesel-esque let-the-traffic-cones-fall-where-they-may disregard for the rules of the road, given the contents of your letter, the rest of me is wondering whether your devil-may-care driving has already resulted in some kind of head injury.

I’ll grant you that those parking-lot stop signs are a little weird. We’ll assume they were placed at some private company’s whim rather than being authorized through the process that governs city streets. Shouldn’t that mean, then, that disobeying them is only pretend illegal? Like if you kept doing it they’d suspend your Costco card instead of your driver’s license?

In a word, no. While it is admittedly unlikely that you could lose your license without ever leaving the Best Buy parking lot, blowing through a stop sign there is still big-boy illegal. Oregon’s definition of “highway” includes “every public way, road, street, thoroughfare and place...intended for use of the general public for vehicles or vehicular traffic,” whether it’s publicly owned or not. If there’s a stop sign, you gotta stop.

In fact—and this will really piss you off—thanks to a legal concept called “reliance,” you’re required to stop even for signs you know aren’t legal, since other road users have a right to assume that’s what you’ll do. If you don’t and there’s an accident, you can be found culpable even though you saw your fraternity brothers putting up the sign as a prank last night.

Finally, your take on construction zones is so bogus as to hardly need refuting. For the record, however, those workers are specifically empowered to direct traffic by city or state permit. If anything, it’s even more illegal to disobey their signals than to ignore regular signs. As page 58 of the Oregon Driver Manual puts it, “Traffic fines are doubled in all work zones. You are expected to yield to workers.” It’s a gripping read; you should check it out sometime.

Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.