(Since ASCII drawings don’t seem to work well…) Say Car A is driving south on a road, and car B is driving north on the same road. They are approaching the same intersection, and car A wants to turn right, whereas car B wants to turn left, so that they will both be going West. Car B has a left turn signal, and A has a red light (but can turn right on red if traffic is clear.)
1.) Is B legally obligated to turn into the closest (leftmost) lane?
2.) If A turns right at the same time as B turns left, and B sweeps across all 3 lanes to get to the right-most lane, and A and B collide, whose fault is it?
If A turns, then the traffic was not clear. A’s fault.
As long as B’s left turn signal was not one of those intended for two lanes of traffic to turn left, in which case there are usually dashed lines painted on the asphault to indicate which lane(s) you are supposed to turn into, then B may turn into whichever lane he/she pleases.
Ack, I missed the red light part at the end - chriszarate then is probably right. Farther up on the page I cited, it says that you must yield right-of-way “when making a right turn on a red light after a stop.” It doesn’t say anything about multiple lanes, however, so that’s tricky. I don’t know what the answer to question #2 is, then.
The laws vary from state to state as to which lane(s) one may turn into. Regardless of that, A is almost certainly required by law, and most definitely by common sense, to not enter the intersection when another vehicle is in that intersection. A needs to wait until the intersection is clear, which makes B’s choice of lane irrelevant.
Say there wasn’t a red light? Or if the light were a green arrow for A , and a green light (not arrow) for B. Meaning B can go if oncomming traffic ceases.
I can’t count the number of dirty looks I get when I proceed to turn right into the right most lane, and the guy turning left opposite of me want’s my lane when he clearly should go into the most left lane (or atleast the lane he’s lined up with).
So, it looks like once the coast is clear, oncoming traffic has to yield right-of-way to whomever is making the left turn! Obviously this applies to Michigan only.
