Here’s Roadguy’s column from the Sunday paper. If you’ve already read it elsewhere, please skip on down to the comments below.

THAT WARM-UP COULD COST YOU; PLUS, SHIFTING THE BLAME FOR A TICKET

Aside from some momentary thaws, this winter sure is taking itself seriously — bus-stop glaciers, ice-covered bike lanes, and some very, very cold mornings for warming up the car.

Roadguy had always thought that it was illegal to leave one’s car running with the keys in the ignition anywhere in Minneapolis, but it’s actually against the law only if the vehicle is on a public road.

Anyplace else, it’s merely a bad idea.

Sgt. Therese Hoffman, who works in traffic control for the Minneapolis Police Department, says officers wish the law were a bit broader. Thieves tempted by a running engine aren’t likely to develop a sudden respect for private property just because the vehicle is parked in a driveway.

Locking the car is only a modest deterrent, Hoffman said, and the fact that the auto was running makes it more difficult for prosecutors to deal with suspected thieves who have keys in their hands. (St. Paul and other cities have ordinances similar to the one in Minneapolis.)

So if you can’t stand a cold car and aren’t too worried about your carbon footprint, remote starters that prevent the car from being driven are the way to go. Hoffman has one herself and describes it as “phenomenal,” though she warms up her car only for a minute or two: “I’m too cheap to pay for all that gas.”

The computer made me do it

Hoffman’s job means she’s always good for a story, and one she told the other day was almost enough to get Roadguy on a personal-responsibility high horse.

Seems that a suburban resident driving through northeast Minneapolis complained about getting a ticket for making an illegal left turn from 7th Street onto Central Avenue. I went out there on Friday to see whether the intersection was rife with ambiguity.

Not really:

I even watched one driver switch off his turn signal as he approached the no-left-turn signs. Cognitive behavior is a beautiful thing. (The city closed the lane after the Interstate 35W bridge collapse to improve the flow of traffic in the neighborhood.)

So what was the ticketed driver’s excuse for making the turn?

Mapquest. The directions he’d gotten from the Web had told him to go left, so he did.

Roadguy called up Allie Burns, a spokeswoman in Virginia for Mapquest. She said that the mapping software can’t know about every temporary lane closure and that the site’s disclaimers are there for a reason. She pointed out that her GPS unit recently instructed her to make a U-turn that would have been illegal, and she chose not to make the turn.

So while digital technologies are making it easier to find your way around, there’s something less newfangled that you should always bring along:

Your brain.

The first holiday we’re going to discuss today is New Year’s. Roadguy outlined his resolutions for 2008 here, and he is proud to report that he has unequivocally achieved Resolution No. 3:

Yes, he bought a city of Minneapolis parking meter card, and he even loaded it with five bucks. He has yet to use it and still keeps quarters on hand for whenever he’s in St. Paul. (The card can be used in St. Paul, but one has to put money on it in St. Paul first.) Roadguy has been hearing that the cards, which cost $5, don’t work as flawlessly as one might hope — if you’ve got a story to tell, please do so below.

The second holiday worthy of mention today is Valentine’s Day, which Roadguy remembers like it was only yesterday. Alert reader Casey had Cupid on his mind this week when he sent along this unintentionally romantic sign, photographed Sunday in Roseville:

Casey knows that the preferred pluralization of “bus” is “buses,” whereas “busses” is the plural of “buss,” which means “kiss.” Having specific, twice-a-day times for smooching sure sounds like a way of promoting community spirit.

The last holiday we’ll mention, and mention only briefly, is Presidents’ Day, which is Monday. That means Roadguy’s card will go unused another day: city parking meters in Minneapolis and St. Paul will be free (the University of Minnesota, however, appears to be another story; click here).

Twenty below with a nice breeze, with windchills dipping to minus 43 — gotta love a January forecast like that. Waiting for the bus, biking, driving a frozen car — just about everyone feels some transportation pain on mornings like this. (Except maybe the heated-garage crowd.)

But remember, in some places — such as the fair city of Minneapolis — it’s illegal to leave your car running with the keys in the ignition*, even if you lock the doors. (A Minneapolis police brochure with winter auto-theft prevention tips is here.) Roadguy gave the cops a quick call yesterday, and they confirmed that it’s OK if you have one of those remote-start devices that prevents the car from being driven. But otherwise, if you want to warm up your vehicle, you need to sit and stay.

Not everybody does this, of course — perhaps not even you. If you’re a scofflaw who lets his or her car warm up unguarded, or if you have a related story to share, please take advantage of the anonymity of the Internet and post a comment below.

*UPDATES (posted at 1 p.m.):

• Alert reader Subgenius is correct in his quotation of the Minneapolis ordinance — it only applies to cars parked on public streets or alleys, something the city brochure fails to mention. (The sergeant I talked to yesterday also failed to mention it; the one I contacted today cleared things up.)
• If you’re warming up the car because you think it benefits the car, check out this link to the Car Talk archive. If it’s 10 or 15 above, the guys say just drive it; if it’s bitterly cold, a minute or two ought to do it.
• The overnight low in the Twin Cities was actually a balmy 14 below, not the predicted 20 below.

Here’s Roadguy’s column from the Sunday paper. If you’ve already read it elsewhere, please skip on down to the comments below.

Freeway drivers tend to have little affection for a lane that’s about to end, but they harbor a great deal of love for exit-only signs.

After last week’s column about the removal of such signs along Interstate 394, several alert readers wanted a better understanding of the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s motivations, so Roadguy got more info from Heather Lott, a MnDOT sign guru.

Lott says that exit-only signs were developed to let drivers on the main part of a highway know that their lane is ending, not to tell drivers entering from a ramp that they’re in a short acceleration/deceleration lane.

“Exit-only signs create a strong reaction from drivers, resulting in many leaving the auxiliary lane immediately, even if they have not accelerated sufficiently to merge into mainline traffic,” Lott wrote, using italics for emphasis. “This defeats the primary purpose of the auxiliary lane.”

So to reduce driver panic, MnDOT has decided that auxiliary lanes that are a half-mile long or longer should get exit-only signs, while shorter ones generally get the “dotted” lane striping and sometimes a black-and-white “right lane must exit” sign. Lott says that, compared with other states, Minnesota had been “overusing” exit-only signs on auxiliary lanes.

Lott encourages drivers entering a freeway to look at the sign near the end of the ramp. An added-lane sign…

…is used for lanes that are going to stick around for a while, whereas a standard merge sign…

…indicates ramp traffic should plan to merge into mainline traffic.

So the answer is still there in black and yellow; it’s just at the end of the ramp instead of overhead.

Rollover likely to close freeways through rush hour

Roadguy just drove over the westbound lanes of I-94 on the south edge of downtown Minneapolis, and they were eerily empty. Sounds like Mr. Truck Driver was just trying to deliver some unleaded gasoline so commuters could fill ‘er up and get where they needed to go, and now they might not be able to get around at all. If you’ve got any stories from the road, please share below. I’m off to St. Paul myself — we’ll see how long it takes to get back.

It might not be Roadguy’s imagination after all: A study out of the University of Utah says subjects who talked on cell phones during a virtual driving experiment drove more slowly than when they weren’t talking on the phone, and such behavior slows down traffic for everybody else. A Reuters version of the story is here, Associated Press version here.

The story reminded Roadguy of a sign he saw last week in a school zone in a suburb of Dallas:

This rule just took effect Dec. 3 (a news story is here). But many researchers say the problem isn’t the holding of the phone — it’s the talking. (The subjects in the Utah test were using hands-free phones.)

So, what’s your take? Click below to share your thoughts on the study and on whether Minnesota should have more cell phone restrictions for drivers.