Robert Horowitz, defendant pro se.
Cindy Intschert, District Attorney, Watertown (
Timothy Virkler of counsel), for plaintiff.
OPINION OF THE COURT
JAMES C. HARBERSON, JR., J.
Facts
Robert Horowitz was operating his vehicle on Arsenal Street in the City of Watertown going west on Arsenal Street. He was in a line of traffic that after the light turned green at the Decision
Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1175 states that "when vehicular traffic is stopped on the opposite side of an intersection, no person shall drive a vehicle into such intersection . . . notwithstanding the indication of a traffic control signal which would permit him to proceed." Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1175 requires a motorist when presented with "stopped" traffic on the "opposite side of an intersection" to not "drive a vehicle into such intersection" until the traffic in the lane ahead of him clears to the point there is room for his car to clear the intersection after he crosses it. In this case the traffic ahead of the defendant was not "stopped" when he came to the intersection but rather was moving slowly at five miles per hour through it without hesitation. The officer acknowledged this was true and testified that it was only after the defendant was within the intersection that the whole line of traffic of which he was a part stopped together in response to a red light at an intersection a quarter of a mile ahead of the one the defendant found himself in when the line of traffic stopped. While the officer agreed that there was no "stopped" traffic ahead of the defendant "on the opposite side" of the intersection when he entered it, he should, as a reasonable motorist informed solely by the slow pace of the traffic, have discerned it might stop and in anticipation of such a possibility not entered the intersection until the car ahead of him moved through it to a point there was room for his car on the other side to clear the intersection. This is not what the law requires. It is only "[w]hen vehicular traffic is stopped on the opposite side of an intersection . . . [that] no person shall drive into such intersection" (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1175), not that it
might stop before a motorist can cross the intersection. Otherwise any driver who entered an intersection while cars are moving through it, who is forced to stop within it due to an accident, the passing of an emergency vehicle or, as in this case, traffic stopping for another traffic signal a quarter of a mile ahead and was forced to remain within it until the light turned red, would be guilty of violating this provision of the Vehicle and Traffic Law which is not the intent of the law. The charge against Mr. Horowitz is dismissed.