It’s about 5:30 p.m. Your stomach is growling, and the fridge is empty except for the 12-pack left over from the weekend. You would like to take a short trip into town, but you know that five miles in Auburn traffic equates to 20 minutes each way. Auburn’s traffic problems don’t have to exist. There are a few basic traffic rules that, if followed, would speed things up faster than a Jimmy John’s order. Here’s a few traffic basics that people need to follow. If not for speeding up the process of getting downtown, than at least for common courtesy. 1. Yielding, not stopping, at yield signs. The city confused visitors and residents alike when they installed yield signs on Magnolia Ave. every 30 feet. Admittedly, they are in front of the campus, and the crosswalks receive a lot of foot traffic during normal class hours. The problem arises when people treat the yield signs as stop signs. If stops were only made when there were pedestrians trying to cross, traffic on Magnolia would be in constant motion.

2. Green means go. Within 10 seconds of a light turning green, the first car should be moving. This means paying attention to the road, even when stopped. Whether it is texting, talking on the phone or just staring in the wrong direction, people in Auburn seem to forget that they are still in the process of driving when stopped at a red light. A simple glance at the traffic light would prevent people in the back of the turn lane from missing the green light all together.

3. Turn signals became standard in the late 1940s. Use them. Driving down Glenn, or any street for that matter, there is more than a few places to turn off. Instead of assuming that slamming on the breaks to make the turn is signal enough, a turn signal allows the person behind you to become aware of your next driving action.

4. Cars can turn without making a full stop first. Perhaps the most frustrating of all the ignored traffic courtesies is making a full stop before turning. Cars were made to move. The steering wheel was made to move the car in another direction. The wheels were made to move the car forward in the direction of the steering wheel. All of these things can happen simultaneously. Modern car technology has allowed us to make a sharp turn without making a full stop. It is about time for drivers to take advantage of that technology.