Passing on a double yellow, if done with some discretion, can be perfectly safe. California mountain roads, for instance, used to be largely single striped, leaving passing discretion to the driver. That changed because of lawsuits against the California road authority CALTRANS. What did CALTRANS do in response? Stripe double yellow almost everyplace, using AASHTO standards to determine where. Those standards assume the passing vehicle has the acceleration of a Volkswagen Microbus, so only long, long straightaways get striped for passing. For motorcycles this is absurd because as as a group they accelerate so quickly as to need only short passing areas.
The result is CALTRANS doesn't get sued and no one can pass on mountain roads legally, even if it is possible to do it very safely.
The result is CALTRANS doesn't get sued and no one can pass on mountain roads legally, even if it is possible to do it very safely.
