No, you are not obligated to turn right on a red light, but if the only reason you don’t is because you wish to take a break, you might consider pulling over and parking. This would free up the streets for people who use the roads for transportation.
Don’t know that much about California, But in Colorado we have such a crack down on road rage that lots of fairly vague things are resulting in tickets. For example, if you are going under the speed limit, and a cop believes that you are doing so to piss off the guy behind you then you can be given a ticket. I’ve never heard of it happening, but I’d imagine that if a cop thought you were not turning right out of maliciousness you could get a ticket.
I know it’s true! That’s why I go as fast as I can between synchronised lights, so I can get there first and make it change. That way I WIN! 
[sub]just kidding[/sub]
And, what Czarcasm & Johnny L.A. said.
You certainly can–you are in complete conformance with the rules. That’s not the point. The point is, you could have asked for other people’s opinions without throwing in the “nyah nyah, my mind is made up” stuff. It didn’t add anything to your inquiry, it just made you look closed-minded.
I’ll jump to Rilchiam’s defense here. I took it as meaning she didn’t want to be preached to, or having anyone try to change her mind. Being closed-minded isn’t always a bad thing, you know. Extreme example: I’m not likely to have anyone convert me to Christianity, but I certainly do like to hear others’ opinions without preaching, because I am interested in differing & opposing opinions to mine. (If you want to be rude, the Pit is the place to do that.) 
[sub]OK, I’m getting way OT here, sorry.[/sub] Hey, Rilchiam get back in here!
I have to go driving around honking at people who don’t drive like I do, now.
[Edited by Czarcasm on 05-12-2001 at 02:57 PM]
Messed up the code thingie. Right when I was trying to give an upstart newbie a pointer or two…damn.
Well, thank you all for your opinions and your support!
What Carina said.
Johnny L.A., I hadn’t thought of it like that.
handy, don’t you mean that you do agree with Java?
Czarcasm, it wasn’t going to take that long.
MrNeutron, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Not a damned thing.
Speaking as someone who’s in a rush 90% of the time… if his signal had been on and you could have turned, I’d say you should have done so.
There’s one awkward intersection around here with a two-way street running north and south, a two-way street to the east, and a one-way street heading west. Coming from the south, there’s usually a red light (to go straight) and a green arrow (to turn right; the right lane is turn only). But since I’m always in a hurry, I can’t stand when people ignore the green arrow, come to a stop, and don’t move until the light turns green.
In any case, if you’re going to stay put instead of turning, a Bavarian fire drill is a better use of time than changing CDs.
My favorite “impatient driver” story took place on the little back streets by my old work place. As a slight shortcut, one turns left from a terminating street (a ‘T’ intersection) that has no traffic light. During rush hour, the through street (or whatever you call the top of the T) is, as one would suspect, often quite busy.
Combine that with the fact that I’m a safe (read: wussy) driver, means that I wait there until it’s safe. Well, one day the guy behind me decided to honk. Wise ass that I am, I rolled down my window and waved him ahead. Genius that he was, he went around me on my left, entered the intersection, then promptly got stuck and honked at. 
GuanoLad: In the USA driving laws change from state to state. I believe most states allow the “right turn on red”, but that doesn’t mean it’s legal everywhere in the country.
Rilchiam: How about what Carina42 said? Maybe the person was dumbstruck by your beauty and wanted to ask you out/get your phone number?
JohnnyLA: I agree that the courteous thing is to keep traffic moving. We don’t know why the person behind us is in a hurry. On the other hand, the person honking at me doesn’t know why I’m stopping. I could be re-bandaging my bleeding child or consulting a map to make sure I don’t get lost on the way to the hospital to visit my dying mother. I don’t want to pull to the side of the road because then I would waste time getting back into the street.
I’ve seen too many drivers that are impatient for insufficient reasons. Even if you miss a green light, that would only delay yor trip for at most 3 or 4 minutes.
Rilchiam, my final opinion will depend on which CDs you were changing. e.g. if you paused to switch from the Backstreet Boys to N’Sync, I would say that the change was useless (who can tell them apart anyway?) and a waste of time, and you deserved the honk.
Arnold: True, the person behind doesn’t know why the person is holding up traffic; but I think the person in fron has an obligation not to hold up traffic. If I need to consult a map and I can’t do so without holding other people up, I pull over. If there is more than one person behind the car not turning, then the person not turning is saying (in effect), “My time is worth more than the time of the people in the six cars behind me.” While the PNT may be taking 4 minutes of one person’s time, in aggregate the PNT is taking 4 minutes from every person waiting. I think it’s just inconsiderate.
The same thing goes on the freeway. I often see people in the “fast lane” (yeah, I know the speed limit is the same in all lanes) who could easily move over to let the line of cars behind them pass, without hindering their own progress. But they don’t. (“Who appointed you pace-car?”) If I am on the freeway and there are people who are faster than I, I feel obliged to move over to let them pass. And I expect they would do the same for me. I always try to give a wave when I’m on the bike and someone makes room for me. They’re being courteous to me, and I thank them.
Again, you don’t know why people are impatient. Reasons that may seem “insufficient” to you (assuming you could know those reasons) might not be insufficient to them.
The bottom line is this: We should all strive to be more courteous drivers. (And pedestrians, for that matter. Have you ever had to walk around people who are blocking a sidewalk?) People who are not in a hurry should realize that some people are, and should get out of the way. People who are in a hurry should be more patient.
If you’re in a situation where waiting 2 extra minutes at a red light is going to mess up your schedule, then it’s your fault. Have patience, if someone doesn’t want to turn on red, it’s their decision.
MrNeutron
Registered: May 1999
Carina42
Registered: Jun 2000
Is this one of those reverse temporal universes that i’ve seen on Dr. Who or is this one of those forums where post count is directly proportional to penis size (metaphorically speaking of course)?
Monocracy, I think she was referring to his Newbie posting status. Carina42 has over 800 posts, while MrNeutron has 12. 12 posts is still a newbie on the board, to posting here anyway. Post count is a slightly better (although not perfect) way of measuring a member’s activity on the boards, as opposed to date of registering.
Jman
Okay, I’ll bite.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. The correct answer is: “<honk> . . . You have got to be kidding me. Move your ass, you freakin’ idiot! <honk, honk> Jesus H. Christ, would you go? . . . What the hell? <roll down window> What the hell are you waiting for, shithead? GO! . . . <honk> Wake up and drop your dick, you fucking moron!”
Ahem, it’s the same as a stop sign. When it’s clear for you to go, go. It’s really not a matter of “opinion,” and CD’s ain’t got nothing to do with it.
You guys are kidding about the truck driver perhaps alerting Rilchiam to a burned out brake light, right?
Bear with me on this. I have a CD someone sent me of a stage production of Oklahoma, in which Hugh Jackman had the lead. I’m not kidding; Wolverine can sing. Well, I was taking that out and putting in a novelty song called “The Hockey Song (Hit Somebody)” that Warren Zevon recorded in conjunction with David Letterman*. I think he performed it on the Late Show once. It’s funny, especially if you’re a hockey fan. Anyway, I was moving the CDs back into the correct cases: Sugar Ray had been in the Cypress Hill case, Faith Hill (sue me) was in Go Simpsonic with the Simpsons, and HMS Pinafore was on the wrong sides of the double case.
I’m diverse.
*Don’t ask me how a surfer knows anything about hockey. Don’t ask me what those two have in common, but they seem to genuinely get along, and from what I understand, it’s unusual for someone to voluntarily hang out with Letterman.
I’ll admit to being a pretty impatient, type A person & a fairly, umm…aggressive driver. What irritates me when people do inconsiderate things (slow in left lane & so on) isn’t that I may be 3 minutes later to my destination. It’s that, like Johnny LA said, we are all sharing the road & I think it’s considerate to drive as such. Which includes not honking & yelling if someone has an airhead moment on the road, waving “thanks” to people who let you in, giving other people room, using turn signals & just generally being polite.
Monocracy, I wasn’t looking at date registered, but happened to notice the post count. I have no idea how big Mr Neutron’s penis is.
squib…let me guess, you’re quite a young guy, right? Do you drive one of those pickup trucks with the decal of the kid pissing? I wasn’t joking about the brake light thing, just raising other possibilities for the guy honking. Maybe he wanted her to turn up her stereo so he could hear the Hockey song better.
Rilchiam, you have a weird tase in music, cool!
It’s unlikely that anyone was waiting 2 minutes for a light to change. They usually aren’t cycled that long unless it’s a very small street feeding on to a very busy street.
I think that while you are not obliged to turn red on a red in a legal situation, if you are stopped in the intersection, you should proceed if it is safe. However, I doubt the OP was holding up traffic for any period of time longer than 10 seconds.
I don’t have many peeves, but this is one. There are quite a few people on the road who think they know what my driving skills are & what manuvers I am capable of. Even if traffic is light & I have a clear lane for 4 or 5 car lengths, blowing your horn at me is not going to encourage me out into a situation that I don’t feel prepared to handle.
Taxi drivers are the worst (at least in this city). They pull up behind me as I sit in the left turn lane waiting for an opportunity to turn through a gap in the oncoming traffic. Every time there is a tiny opening, the taxi driver blows his horn: BEEP BEEP! (“Go now!”). No, Mr. Taxi driver, I’ll go when I feel it’s safe to do so. And if that means waiting for the next green arrow, then that’s the way it’s going to be.
I agree with Rilchium and Attrayant here. Yesterday I got run off a narrow two-lane raod because the oncoming car was trying to pass a bicyclist. In broad daylight - he could totally see me! - he swerved halfway into my lane. It was a small bridge, with a concrete barrier, and I swerved out of his path and into the barrier. I now have $2000 worth of damage to my fender and door, but at least my brother, my dog and I are okay. If he had actually looked before trying to pass the biker, my car would be fine right now and I wouldn’t have to pay a $500 deductible.
There have been quite a few times when someone behind me honked to encourage me to make a left-turn, when I really didn’t feel like it was safe to do so. There was one time, in downtown Baltimore, when I couldn’t make my right turn on red because of pedestrians. And the person behind me honked continously, while the tourist families strolled down the crosswalk. He wanted me to kill a family of four from Wisconsin so he wouldn’t be late? Thanks, I’ll handle things from here, Spanky.
There is also this one yield by my house that I take to work. It’s a right hand yield, and you have no lane whatsoever to merge. So you have to come to a complete stop, but some nimrods put one of those huge green electric boxes right my line of vision. I mean, when I am as far forward as I can go without pulling into the lane, I cannot see oncoming traffic at all. So I stretch my neck, crane my head, and do my best to see.
Now, the person behind me has an unobstructed view. And often times that person will honk. But I’m still not going until I know it’s safe. Please! “Sorry, Officer, I killed that guy 'cause the dude behind me said I was safe to go!” Bullshit.
If we all slowed down just a tad and drove with a little more caution, there would certainly be less accidents. When I filed my report, the cop said people get run off the road all the time - it’s commonplace. Especially where I was driving, because the road is curvy and there are a lot of cyclists, joggers, and hikers.
Carina42,
Nope, just exaggerating for effect. The guy in italics is the commercial truck driver. I’m the calmest driver on the road.
I’ll stand by this: Never in one million years would someone honk because a brake light was out. In Mayberry maybe, I don’t know.
It really isn’t a matter of opinion. When it’s clear to go, you’re required to go or you’re just blocking traffic (read: violating the rules of the road). Does that mean you’ll get cited if you don’t? Obviously not. To those quibbling about whether it’s safe yet, please read about the CD changer again.
Legally obliged or not, exercise some common courtesy. Those who are always standing on their real or perceived “rights,” no matter how petty, make the world a little more miserable than it needs to be.