If you think that turning right on red is automatically either safe or legal, you don’t know very much about driving. An intersection near where I live has one of these signs.
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This appears to require more than a bit of legal interpretation, and isn’t just a matter of legal fact. As such, let’s move this thread to IMHO.
I think the right answer is to get out of the way whatever way you can. Including violating traffic laws, if needed.
A story to illustrate this:
I was driving down a road with 2 lanes of traffic in my direction, a left turn lane with several cars, and a divided median with high barriers and trees growing in it. A fire truck came speeding down the road, with siren and lights going. All the drivers pulled over into either the left turn lane or the far right lane, leaving the inside lane open for the fire truck (which was going straight through the intersection). Except for one idiot who was sitting at the red light, obliviously playing on his phone.
The fire truck pulled up behind him and blasted its horn, but this guy paid no attention. So the fire truck driver released his brake and bumped the back of the guys car with the big bumper on the fire truck. (Hard, too – his car moved at least a foot or two!) That driver then woke up and went through the intersection and pulled over and stopped once through it. The fire truck went right on by at high speed. The idiot driver was out of his car looking at the back end (visibly dented) and yelling at the fire truck speeding away. While I was waiting at the next light, I saw a city police car pull in behind him and a police officer get out.
The rest of the story I heard from our neighborhood email list.
The police officer gave that driver a ticket for 'impeding an emergency vehicle’ and told him the cost of any repairs to his vehicle were up to him or his insurance company.
He fought the ticket in Traffic Court, but lost. Then appealed to District Court, and his appeal was dismissed. He claimed that he was going to the State Appeals Court, but I don’t think he did – we never heard any more about it.
P.S. Not long after, as part of redoing that road, the traffic signals were replaced – the new ones have the feature where emergency vehicles can override the traffic lights.
Stop splitting hairs. You don’t live in Arizona. Here, if an emergency vehicle is behind you with lights and sirens on, you get out of the way the best you can. Period.
same here in ca … you go through the light to pull over … if you don’t and someone dies as a result it can be an actual murder charge
Really? That seems a bit extreme unless you are really trying to obstruct the emergency workers.
Has anyone been prosecuted for this?
Besides, as I mentioned, in Tucson, the emergency vehicles can turn lights green in their direction of travel. So if you turn left, you’re doing it on a green light. No law is broken.
You’re right, I don’t live in Arizona. That’s why I’m curious about your assertion that it is permitted by statute in Arizona to turn left on a red light in the circumstances set out in the OP. So far, you’ve not provided a cite in support of your assertion.
What if you go through the red light and T-bone a car in the cross-road which has a green light and kill someone in that car? Any charges?
The fire truck would just move into the incoming lane (carefully) and go around you. Cars in that lane are required to give way, too.
Curiosity doesn’t generally try to poke holes in the answer given. It seems more like you are arguing that they are in fact wrong.
Plus this is something that genuinely happens, not merely a law class hypothetical. People die if emergency vehicles don’t arrive, with far more than the likelihood that you would get hit the one time you run a light. The moral decision is thus clear: you run the light as soon as it seems clear. Just like you would to avoid hitting someone or any other action.
This is so obvious that we would hope that at least one of the police, prosecutor, judge, or jury would realize how stupid it would be to punish the person who ran the light. The only real question is if this has been formalized, or if we have to rely on prosecutorial discretion.
Because, regardless, the correct course of action is clear, and it is not simply waiting on the off chance you might accidentally not see someone and hit them when running the light. Most intersections have a clear line of sight by design, after all.
what part of the ‘legal and safe’ qualifier needs to be explained to you?
well in theory there wouldn’t be another car because it’s supposed to have pulled over already
If that were the case, then it’d be illegal to stop at a red light even without a fire engine behind you. I really, really doubt that the law says you’re not allowed to stop at a red light.
In that case, the stuck driver wouldn’t be able to go through safely, either.
And @BigT and @cochrane , if we don’t get a cite for that assertion, then it’s reasonable to assume that it is, in fact, wrong. The law says that you’re not allowed to go through red lights (I’m not from Arizona, but I think I’m on safe ground in assuming that). If the law doesn’t give an exception for when there’s a fire truck honking its horn behind you, then there isn’t an exception. If the intersection is otherwise clear enough that you could go through, then it’s clear enough that the fire truck could go around you, perhaps into the oncoming lane.
I don’t agree. These ideas of what you’re supposed to do don’t come from nowhere. The presumption is that the person who actually lives and drives in a place knows more than those who don’t. They’re more likely to know the nuances of enforcement, even if they can’t find a law to back it up.
And the hypothetical situation at hand specifically precludes them being able to go around you. It’s not at all impossible: traffic lights often come in groups, and traffic in the oncoming lanes can be backed up from the one beyond. I’ve been in that situation before, albeit not with an emergency vehicle behind me.
Plus the poster in question has flat out recommended not running the light, so it’s clear they’re not just curious, but actually making an argument for a specific action.
So it’s no longer permitted to say “cite, please?”
Yes, I don’t think it’s a good idea to run a red light, and am intrigued by the idea that the law in a particular jurisdiction gives a private citizen the power to do so. I could be wrong, of course, so I’m curious to see that law.
Eh, not really? How many times in your life have you been stopped at an intersection with an emergency vehicle behind you where the only way to get out of its way is to run a red light? How many times have you been stopped by the police or gone to court for going through, vs. how many times for not going through? The numbers are way too low for a typical driver to make any sort of generalization from their personal experience.
Yes, they’re making an argument for the one and only specific action that the law allows, unless someone can come up with a cite otherwise. That’s a really solid argument.
Dealing with the second part first, no, it’s not true that the fire truck could get around me without my pulling into the intersection despite the light being red. This is a real situation that I’ve been in, where there wasn’t room for the emergency vehicle to move without cars getting out of the way, and some of those cars had to go through a red light to do it.
I didn’t “run” the red light, I crawled through the intersection, being very careful to be safe. But the oncoming traffic was also stopped, because of the sirens.
Second, I don’t know the laws in Arizona, but when I took drivers’ ed, we were taught that the fundamental rule of the road, which trumped all other rules, was that the driver must drive in a way that is safe and reasonable. This usually comes up when you need to drive slower than the speed limit due to rain or snow. But I believe it also covers getting out of the way of emergency vehicles.
Arizona’s version of the necesito defense might apply as well—to the extent a defense would even be needed—as long as you’re careful enough not to hit and seriously injure/kill someone.
I’d like to add that in my experience, it’s a fairly common situation. I’ve rarely had to go through a red light, but I’ve often been in a pack of cars where SOMEONE in the front needed to go through a red light to make room for the emergency vehicle to proceed.