So, how do those unmarked intersections work?

A letter to the editor in the Feb. 2 issue of The Monitor made a sobering observation about Boulder residents’ driving abilities: “Apparently myself and two or three others are the only ones who know the law.”

The letter, handwritten by Ed McCracken and dropped in the newspaper’s letterbox, also came with a suggestion: “I think it’s long past time that The Monitor does an article about how to proceed through all the unmarked intersections in town.”

Unmarked intersections, technically called “uncontrolled intersections,” are intersections that wholly lack traffic control signage in every direction. In Boulder, that plays out in many places as three- and four-way intersections without any stop signs or yield signs, offering drivers no posted visual indication of who has right of way. The intersection of West First Avenue and North Jackson Street is one such intersection. McCracken wrote that he believed uncontrolled four-way intersections operated essentially like four-way stops: The first vehicle to arrive at the intersection has the right of way; in the event of a tie, the vehicle to the right has right of way.