During 2016, our law firm successfully defended a client who
had been cited under Idaho Code § 18-8004, Driving under the Influence. Our
first indication that this stop was improper was the Citation itself, which
only identified a single violation for Driving under the Influence. There was
no moving violation justifying the initial stop. Upon reviewing the Officer’s
narrative, the sole basis for our client’s stop was a failure to signal entry
or exit into the roundabout located in the city limits of Idaho Falls. While
issues were brought up regarding breath alcohol testing and the equipment used,
the main issue in this defense centered on the roundabout and a driver’s
obligations to signal while negotiating the roundabout.
Idaho Falls, like other cities and counties, has begun
developing roundabouts at certain intersections in an effort to allow traffic
to flow more efficiently. One such intersection is located right in the heart
of Idaho Falls where Memorial Drive, Riverside Drive and E Street intersect. At
this intersection, our client was travelling northbound on Memorial Drive and
exited the roundabout so as to continue proceeding north on Memorial Drive.
After proceeding through the intersection, the client was immediately pulled
over for failure to signal. Testing was performed and our client was arrested.
(Ironically, the dashboard camera of the arresting officer showed that the
officer himself failed to signal while entering and exiting the roundabout.) The
dashboard camera also showed another vehicle which was pulled over by the
police only a few yards away, which seems to indicate that it is a common
practice to use alleged roundabout violations to justify stopping vehicles.
The statutes regarding roundabouts are scarce in Idaho, in
fact, they are non-existent. No definition of a roundabout is even provided in
Idaho Code § 49-119, the definition section of Title 49. Under Idaho Case Law,
“an investigative detention must be based upon reasonable suspicion, derived
from specific articulable facts that the person stopped has committed or is
about to commit a crime.” State v.
Salato, 137 Idaho 260, 47 P.3d 763 (Ct.App. 2001). The crime for which our
client was allegedly pulled over was violation of Idaho Code Section 49-808(2),
which requires turn signals to be used as follows:
A signal of intention to turn or move
right or left when required shall be given continuously to warn other traffic.
On controlled-access highways and before turning from a parked position, the
signal shall be given continuously for not less than five (5) seconds and, in
all other instances, for not less than the last one hundred (100) feet traveled
by the vehicle before turning.
The issue facing our client did not involve a
controlled-access highway or turning from a parked position. Therefore, under
this statute, according to the officer, our client was required to use his turn
signal one hundred feet before entering the roundabout and one hundred feet
before exiting the roundabout.
However, the roundabouts being built in Idaho Falls and
elsewhere are not as large as more traditional roundabouts found in Europe. Had
our client signaled for a right turn prior to entering the roundabout as allegedly
required, other vehicles would have assumed that our client was making a right
turn onto E Street. Because of the proximity of the Memorial Drive entrance and
the E Street exit, there is not sufficient time to distinguish between a turn
signal for entering the roundabout and a turn signal to exit onto E Street. It is
difficult for a driver to signal right to enter the roundabout, disengage the
turn signal and then reengage the turn signal to turn right onto E Street. It
is impossible to comply with the requirement of Idaho Code Section 49-808(2)
that the turn signal must be activated “...for not less than the last one
hundred (100) feet traveled by the vehicle before turning.” The turn signal
requirement asserted by the officer is not possible within smaller roundabouts
and could lead to potential accidents. If a driver signals for a right turn
immediately prior to proceeding directly through the intersection, an
approaching or following driver would reasonably assume the driver intended to
turn right onto E Street. The same dilemma appears when signaling an exit from
the Roundabout. Complying with the one hundred foot requirement would actually
increase collisions because many of the newly constructed roundabouts are less
than one hundred feet in circumference, requiring drivers to signal the entire
time they are in the intersection regardless of whether they are exiting at the
nearest exit. Drivers are left with the choice of strictly complying with the
one hundred foot requirement of Idaho Code 49-808(2), which would serve only to
confuse other drivers and would require multiple circles around a roundabout to
meet the one hundred foot requirement before exiting, or risk being pulled over
for not signaling.
As is true with most DUI’s, the first real test of our
defense came during the Administrative License Suspension Hearing required by
the Idaho Department of Transportation. The position we argued was that our
client approached an intersection and drove straight through and because no
turn was made, no signal was required to enter or exit the intersection. Fortunately
for our client, the Administrative License Suspension was vacated, but not for
the reasons we originally argued. The Hearing Officer relied almost entirely
upon the persuasive holding of the Alaska Court of Appeals’ case of Noble v. State, 357 P.3d 1201, (Alaska
Ct. App., 2015) in making the following findings:
- Entering into a roundabout is not considered turning. Our client had to move to the right because traffic moves counterclockwise within the roundabout. When our client entered and drove within the roundabout, he was simply following the curvature of the roadway (driving around the roundabout’s center island). The curvature was similar to a curve on a road. Upon exiting the roundabout, our client continued to drive in the same direction in which he had entered the roundabout.
- In the Noble decision, the Alaska Court of Appeals stated, “The underlying difficulty is that the signaling requirements...were designed for linear intersections. These requirements become problematic when applied to roundabouts because of the way in which the entrances and exits of the roundabout are configured, and the way traffic flows through a roundabout.” See Noble v. State, 357 P.3d 1201 (2015).
- The Noble decision further stated, “But just as it is unclear whether the act of entering a roundabout constitutes a right turn, it is also unclear whether leaving a roundabout constitutes a turn (either to the left or the right).”
- Idaho Code § 49-808 was last amended in 2005, before any roundabouts existed in Idaho. Therefore, a reasonable inference can be made that roundabouts were not taken into consideration when this statute was last amended.
- Since there is no statute, rule, regulation or definition that is applicable to roundabouts, as provided in the Noble decision, there is no clear way to apply the signaling provisions of Idaho Code § 49-808 to roundabouts.
The driver’s license suspension was denied by the Hearing
Officer and the DUI was later dismissed by the City Prosecutor, based in part
on these holdings. Our client retained his license, served no jail time and paid
no fine.
It is clear that the Idaho Legislature, as confirmed by this
Administrative Hearing Officer, has not created turn signal requirements for
roundabouts. Any attempts by officers to assert a failure to signal when
entering or exiting a roundabout is unjustified. The extent to which other
“Rules of the Road” or local ordinances apply or do not apply to roundabouts is
unclear, but for the moment, turn signals are not required under the laws of
the State of Idaho when entering or exiting a roundabout.
Please contact Fuller & Beck Law Offices with questions
regarding this or other legal issues.
