The in basket: Glenn Shock of Lakeland Village in Allyn asks in an e-mail, “Are there any (state) road cameras in Kitsap County? We live at the highest point in Lakeland Village and get more snow, more often than most other areas.

“We have commitments in Bremerton and Silverdale and always wonder what the road conditions are between here and there.

“Are there cameras on highways 16 and 3 in Kitsap County?”

The out basket: Just one that will be of help checking on the route to Bremerton and Silverdale. It’s in Gorst at Sam Christopherson Road and Highway 3. It was installed during replacement of the east half of the Hood Canal Bridge when traffic was detoured through Gorst up the west side of Hood Canal.

Several others are on Highway 16 from Purdy south, installed during construction of the second Tacoma Narrows Bridge in connection with ramp metering stop lights and on Highway 3 north of Poulsbo, installed to help drivers anticipate closures of the Hood Canal Bridge to vehicle traffic.

Kelly Stowe of the state Department f Transportation says those from Purdy south are viewable at www.wsdot.com/traffic/tacoma/default.aspx. Those from Poulsbo north and the one in Gorst can be seen at www.wsdot.com/traffic/hoodcanal/default.aspx?cam=9191. It has one  between Brinnon and Quilcene on the west side of the canal, too.

The in basket: Well, it happened again. Another Road Warrior reader got pulled over and ticketed at the Sedgwick Road interchange on Highway 16 for going through a red arrow light in a left turn lane.

Freeway on-ramps are among the few places in our county where a little-known state law makes such a turn legal. The law on red lights says a left turn can be made against a red light, either an arrow or a solid ball, IF turning onto a one-way street, IF the driver comes to a complete stop first, IF the driver yields to any traffic with a green light. and IF no signs forbid it.

Caly Madden was the victim this time, on April 19, and the citing officer was a Kitsap County sheriff’s deputy. Last year, a Port Orchard police officer cited a driver for the same thing at the very same place. I helped him get that one dismissed.

The out basket: I contacted Undersheriff Dennis Bonneville, who looked into it and agreed his deputy had goofed. He said he contacted the deputy, who said, essentially, “My mistake.” They’ve asked the county prosecutor’s office to dismiss the ticket, since it’s out of KCSO’s hands once it’s sent to court.

For the rest of us, it may not be worth the hassle to take advantage of that law, especially if we know there is an officer watching us. Caly wound up sitting on the shoulder for quite a while after he was stopped and told the deputy that the law made his turn legal. He didn’t know if the deputy checked by radio with someone else who also didn’t know the law. In any case, the deputy wrote the ticket.

The law in question is Section 3 of RCW 46.61.050.

I usually can’t take advantage of it when I come to one of the few places in the county where it applies because the lead driver stopped at the light rarely knows the law, or dares use it. Westbound Burwell Street at Pacific Avenue in Bremerton is one such, as are the freeway on-ramps with signals controlling movement.

Dennis mentioned something in passing that I hadn’t thought of. He said the deputy who stopped Caly saw another driver at the scene give him a puzzled look or gesture as if to say, “Well??! Are you going to let him get away with that?” He didn’t, as it turned out, but he should have..

It certainly can put an officer in an awkward spot when he must ignore some legal driver action widely believed to be against the law even though it’s not..

Dennis also said the county public works traffic division will be discussing with law enforcement whether they should put up “No Left Turn on Red” signs at the relevant intersections.

He also noted that it would be a tricky question at places like Central Valley Road’s northbound on-ramp to Highway 303. There, the corresponding off-ramp curves up and ends at the same spot, creating a very short two-way street, Of course, there’s no traffic signal there, but some day there might be.

If you want to try it, it would be smart to have a copy of the law with you, or the passage in the state driver’s guide that also says it’s a legal maneuver.

The in basket: Gary Felt, who lives just outside the city of Port Orchard on Highway 166, and says it “is often closed due to mud slides, or sometimes just the fear of a slide,” wants to know what he is allowed to do when that happens.

“What are the rights of a person who lives on, owns property on, or owns a business on a road when it is ‘closed,'” Gary asks. “Does it make a difference if the sign says ‘Local Traffic Only’ or ‘Detour’ as opposed to just ‘Road Closed?’

“If I live/own property and the only access is via this road may I drive around the barriers, walk around the barriers, or must I abandon my property? What if I have left my property and approach the barricade from the ‘closed’ side, am I breaking a law?”

Gary described a situation in which an officer followed him past the barricades during a “Local Traffic Only” period, nearly to the other end of the closure, where his driveway was. Just as he reached the driveway and signaled a turn, the officer turned on his emergency light bar, then turned it off immediately and went back to town.

The out basket: I posed the questions to Chief Al Townsend of Port Orchard police, whose officers have jurisdiction over most of Highway 166, though not right at Gary’s’s driveway.

He said a lot is left to the discretion of the officer. “Local Traffic Only” offers more latitude than “Road Closed,” since the latter may anticipate a problem, like a gas leak exploding or an unstable hillside giving way, rather than sealing off one that already has occurred.

And it depends whether the person is caught inside the outer barriers, designed to detour traffic from going where it would just have to turn around and come back, and the inner barriers designed to keep drivers from actually running into the reason for the closure.

You’d be more likely to get a ticket if you are inside the inner barriers.

But even then, the owner of a home or business in the closed area normally can arrange to get there by calling the road department or police department to get permission in advance, Al said. At worst, the caller would learn that the emergency is dire enough that he really shouldn’t be near it.

The city of Port Orchard has an ordinance making it illegal to violate an emergency road closure, which is a misdemeanor that requires an appearance in court. The officer might choose between it and citing for failure to comply with a regulatory sign, a traffic infraction.

Al said if stopped, a person who can show that he was trying to reach a particular home or business within the closure normally would be allowed to proceed. If nothing else, it would be a “clear mitigating factor” to use in challenging the citation in court, he said.

An officer is free to follow a car outside the city limits and cite the driver if he passed through the closure and wasn’t “local traffic” going to somewhere within it, he said.

“A lot of times, when we have had slides,” he said, “people think they can go down there and meander through the mess and get by, or there may be DOT workers in the midst and now they are dodging workers and equipment to try to get through.

Bicycles must comply the same as the driver of a car. Pedestrians can continue if there is a sidewalk and it isn’t closed, Al said. If there is no sidewalk, such as along most of Highway 166 west of Port Orchard, the closer one got to being in the way of road crews or getting hurt, the more likely that he could be cited, Al said.

Finally, he said, a driver who chances going into the closed stretch and his car is damaged might find his insurance company reluctant to cover what it would have on a road that isn’t closed.