Request By:
Mr. Bernard P. Paolucci
Councilman, City of Edgewood
385 Dudley Road
Edgewood, Kentucky 41017
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
This is in reply to your letter concerning mid-block stop signs and the statutory authority for the installation of such signs. You state that in your city there are a number of locations where stop signs have been placed at nonintersections. In your opinion the placement of those stop signs is legal and is authorized by KRS 189.338(4). You ask whether this office concurs with your assessment of the situation.
KRS 189.338(4) provides as follows:
"In the event an official traffic control signal is erected and maintained at a place other than an intersection, the provisions of this section shall be applicable except as to those provisions which by their nature can have no application. Any stop required shall be made at a sign or marking on the pavement indicating where the stop shall be made, but in the absence of any such sign of marking the stop shall be made at the signal. "
While a portion of KRS 189.338 was amended by the 1978 regular session of the Kentucky General Assembly, subsection (4) thereof was not changed. When KRS 189.338 is examined in its entirety, both prior and subsequent to the 1978 amendments, it seems to us that the statute is primarily concerned with the limitation on colored lights used in traffic control signals and the rules for vehicular and pedestrian traffic controlled by traffic control signals.
The statute does refer to traffic control signals at a place other than an intersection but no mention is made of midblock stop signs. The only time the word "sign" is used in KRS 189.338(4) is in reference to a sign or marking on the pavement indicating where the stop shall be made in response to a midblock traffic control signal. In other words, you are concerned with traffic control signs, specifically stop signs, but the statute to which you have referred is primarily concerned with traffic control signals exhibiting different colored lights, or colored lighted arrows, successively one at a time or in combination. There is a difference between a traffic control sign and a traffic control signal.
In connection with traffic control devices we direct your attention to KRS 189.337 which states:
"(1) As used in this chapter 'official traffic control devices' shall mean all signs, signals, markings, and devices placed or erected by authority of a public body or official having jurisdiction, for the purpose of regulating, warning, or dividing traffic.
(2) The bureau of highways shall promulgate and adopt a manual of standards and specifications for a uniform system of official traffic control devices for use upon all roads and streets. The manual and its future revisions and supplements shall be applicable to all roads and streets under the control of the bureau of highways or any county or incorporated city.
(3) All traffic control devices installed on any road or street after the adoption of the manual shall conform to the provisions thereof. Satisfactory operating traffic devices in use on the date of the adoption of the manual may continue to be used; however, if such devices are replaced or revised, they must be replaced or revised in conformance with the provisions of the manual. "
Pursuant to the legislative mandate imposed upon the bureau of highways to promulgate and adopt a manual of standards and specifications for a uniform system of official traffic control devices, the bureau, by an official order issued in December of 1971, adopted the 1971 Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways of the United States Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, for use on all roads and streets in Kentucky. See OAG 77-442, copy enclosed. It is our understanding that the above mentioned manual is currently being revised by the Federal Government. We suggest you contact Mr. James M. Harville, Director of Management Services, Department of Transportation, State Office Building, Frankfort, Kentucky 40601, to obtain a copy of the manual and any future supplements.
The Manual in dealing with highway traffic signals includes within those sections traffic control signals, beacons, lane-use control signals, drawbridge signals, emergency traffic control signals and train approach signals and gates. Traffic control signals are classified as pretimed and traffic-actuated and control traffic only at the intersections or mid-block locations where the installations are placed. (See Sections 4A-1, 4B-1 and 4B-2 of the Manual. ) Signs, specificallystop signs, are dealt with in the Manual in Section 2B. While we do not know any of the specifics concerning the city's use of mid-block stop signs, we also cannot lfind any section of the current manual signs, we also cannot find any section of the current manual authorizing the use of such mid-block stop signs. We have been advised that mid-block stop signs are not utilized on state maintained roads.
Thus, in conclusion, KRS 189.338(4) does not authorize the use of mid-block stop signs. It does permit the use of mid-block traffic control signals exhibiting different colored lights, or colored lighted arrows, successively one at a time or in combination. There is a difference between traffic control signs and traffic control signals and that distinction is recognized in KRS 189.338 which primarily relates to traffic control signals. As far as we can determine, the present Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices does not authorize, generally, the use of mid-block stop signs; but since we do not have any of the pertinent factual information concerning the city's use of such signs, we can only state that we entertain doubts to the validity of their use.