For clarity, that isn’t the question that was being asked. The left turner isn’t turning onto the same street, they are turning from the street you’re turning right into. So if they are turning left, they will go down the street you (as the right turner) just came from. Normally, these two cars never meet, nor does the right turner usually need to concern herself with the left turner. However, if the left turner is making a U-Turn, she will be turning into the same road as the right turner, and thus a collision is possible.
With this clarification, do you still feel that the right turner must wait until the left turning queue is clear, on the off chance that one of the left turners is making a U-Turn?
Gotta agree with ntucker. You are just flat-out wrong about this, I assure you. A red light never, never, NEVER has the right-of-way over a green light. Never.
It is not contested, except by the ignorant.
Yes, you ABSOLUTELY should not make your right turn on red if someone is making a U-Turn into the same lane that you want to enter. What you are failing to understand is that turning right on red is a PRIVILEGE. You are ONLY allowed to do so if it is safe. It is completely and solely your responsibility to ensure that it is safe. If you have any doubt as to whether it is safe to turn right on a red light, you MUST not do so. You can always wait for the green. If more people could remember this simple fact, a lot of problems would be instantly solved. If you make all your right turns on red with tunnel vision, and only look to the right, you are making a big mistake. Because you are entering a lane for which you do not have the right of way, it’s YOUR job to be extra super vigilant.
Can you make a right turn on red if someone is making a left turn from the perpendicular direction? Sure - of course you can. It’s really not as difficult as you’re making it out to be. You have eyes, and you should be looking both ways before you proceed. It shouldn’t be that hard to tell the difference between a car that’s heading away from you, and a car that’s heading towards you.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with someone who doesn’t see me coming when I’m making a U-Turn, and I’m always watching out for that, just as I watch out for any potential hazards. My beef is when I honk my horn to let them know I’m coming, and they just ignore me. And that happens a lot. Nobody ought to fault you for making an honest mistake, but when you insist that you are right when you are not, and react to warnings and hazards with anger rather than prudence, it’s a big problem.
Wow, lots of vitriol in this thread! Mind if a lurker (and regular driver) jumps in here?
My understanding is that you may turn right on a red ONLY if it’s safe to do so. Just because you can turn right on a red, it doesn’t mean you should cut off traffic in the process. So, if you are sitting on a red and opposing left-turning traffic has green AND U-turns from that lane are legal, you sit and wait until you are certain nobody is going to make a U-turn into your path. At least that’s what I do.
You know, I’m wracking my brain and I can’t think of one intersection within my urban area having multiple lanes of traffic in both directions that doesn’t have either a sign on at least one of the streets or a traffic light. Not saying they don’t exist, but one would wonder what the accident rate would be for an intersection like that. Know of any?
Absolutely. Entering a roadway (even if from another roadway) requires caution. Unless completely outlawed, U-turns should be anticipated. Barring any signage or lights to instruct me, my thought, were I in the right-turning car, would be that any cars already on the roadway I happen to want to be on have the ROW.
This depends completely on the turning radius of the vehicle and the width of the street. You guys are still talking about U-turns aren’t you?
Thing is, it’s very likely that a car may have already initiated his right turn before he could see your intent to make a U-turn. I don’t think that U-turners should complain about a situation they create that will be hard for other people to anticipate. Courtesy between both drivers in this situation is important.
And. This thread has reinforced what I already knew. Make your U-turn if you have to, but avoid them if you can.
And now that I’ve read the thread, I see I’m just parroting what so many others have already said. Good to know, I should be okay in Florida, though.
I don’t think right-turners should complain about a situation they create because they didn’t anticipate a car making a perfectly legal maneuver (in cases where it is, of course). Either the U-turner is in the wrong or the right turner is. If the right-turner has a red light or stop sign, then they’ve failed to yield to traffic. I can’t see how initiating this action first makes them right.
I’m going on the assumption that somebody has some kind of traffic-controlling device because the alternative is dangerous and should be rectified.
I dunno. As long as they’re allowed, and everyone followed the rules of the road (which clearly everyone doesn’t understand), they’re not too bad. Unless you drive a tank. I’ve used them exactly in Shayna’s example to get into gas stations as opposed to turning left over a double yellow just before the intersection.
I deal with this all the time, at an intersection near my house. If you wait a second or so until a car either turning left or in the intersection, it is easy to figure out what they are doing. Don’t try to anticipate what they are doing - look and find out. If they are making a left, and there is no one close behind, then a right is okay. If they slow in the intersection, they are either making a u-turn, or they’re a jerk, in which case all bets are off.
Did you know J. Edgar Hoover had a phobia worse than yours? He forbade his driver to make left turns, since he was in an accident once during a left turn. When he visited field offices the agents carefully figured out routes not requiring any. I don’t remember if he also forbade U-Turns, but I would suspect so. (Source: A book call “No Left Turns,” out well over a decade ago.
Another thing to look out for if you are a right turn on redder - the possibility that the car making a U-turn will slow to go into a driveway. In Shayna’s example, If car C makes a u-turn, and a car turning right (west to south) guns it, they’ll hit her as she turns into the southern E.
Buh? Gee, ya think? Hey, know what else? If you’re out of gas, your car won’t go. And if you don’t have any brakes, you can’t stop. Was there a point to your sidetrack?
That would be the topic of the thread, yes.
As I’ve said twice, I don’t fault a driver if he legitimately didn’t see me coming and is already 3/4 through his turn, but I DO fault a driver who has room to stop, hears me honk my horn, looks straight at me, and still refuses to stop. This happens a lot more than it should.
Precisely my point. Those people who are turning right on red, and refusing to yield (not just making an honest mistake), are failing in that regard.
I make U-Turns precisely the number of times it is necessary. I neither avoid them, nor go out of my way to make them when it isn’t necessary. I always select the most expedient and safest way to get from point A to point B. Often, that is a U-Turn.
If you’re going to select a particular problem maneuver to arbitrarily avoid, it would make more sense to always avoid turning right on red lights.
In the scenario I diagrammed above, the U-turner is not only not “unexpected and impossible to predict,” it should be expected and anticipated by the driver who is sitting at a RED LIGHT . Opposing traffic has the GREEN LIGHT and, assuming they are authorized to make U-turns at intersections where signage doesn’t otherwise prohibit it, if a U-turner is “unexpected” by the Right-turner, then the Right-turner has failed miserably to take proper precautions and be completely aware of their surroundings before proceeding into an intersection ON A RED LIGHT. If you do not know that the vehicle that is moving into the intersection on their Green Light, has the option of either turning Left or making a U-turn, and anticipate either one, and wait to be sure you won’t be impeding the flow of legal traffic through the intersection before proceeding, then you are a dangerous driver and ought not to be on the road.
Seriously, if you’re going to learn something from this thread, learn that you should watch for and expect the possibility of U-turners at intersections where it’s authorized. It really is that simple.
Sorry, but going three or four blocks out of your way to avoid a U-turn at an intersection with a left turn light and marked to allow them is somewhat odd. In California we have wide streets and left turn lanes. I’ve only driven in Denver from Stapledon up to 120th street, which I believe allowed U-turns - maybe your area does not. There are intersections which do not allow them, and there are intersections where the level of cross traffic and lack of a light makes them inadvisable. But they’re not inherently dangerous!
You still have to be a defensive driver even when you think you have the right of way. When I have to make a U-turn (and they’re legal in Texas unless a sign is posted), I make my turn assuming that the person turning from a side street does not know that I’m making a U-turn. It’s much easier to give myself enough room and time so that I can execute my turn safely. If I see that the other driver is pulling out before I’ve finished my turn, I tap my horn to get his attention.
Frankly, it’s not a big deal to wait a little longer to make my turn if the other driver doesn’t stop. I’m not going to get my panties in a wad because the other driver doesn’t realize I have the legal right of way.
Well, I guess this thread’s just about wrapping up.
Well put.
One thing I find confusing in this thread is the constant contention that it’s hard to tell whether someone’s performing a U-turn or not. Sure, while they’re sitting still, you can’t tell, and when they’ve just barely begun their turn, you can’t tell, but if they’re sitting still or just barely starting their turn, it doesn’t really matter; you have plenty of time to go without impeding them. The only time it becomes an issue is if they’ve swung halfway around, are obviously performing a U-turn into the area you’re turning into, and you still insist on pulling out in front of them, either because you mistakenly believe you have the right of way, or because you just aren’t looking for traffic coming through the intersection.
Some of you seem to be coming from the position that you think U-turns are “weird”, and so you aren’t used to watching for them. Well, if U-turns are legal in your part of the world, you better stop thinking of them as “weird” and start watching for them, or at the very least, think of them as “a weird thing I watch out for.” Or prepare to be treated as someone who refuses to acknowledge the laws of the road.
Where I live, and the different places I have driven in the last 30 odd years, It’s very rare to need to make a U-turn. And VERY few people make them.
So. IMHO. From what I’ve witnessed, is that the U-turner is probably making the turn because they missed and earlier turn, or didn’t plan their route very well. This, to me, suggests that the U-turner is not as attentive of a driver as they should be.
Again, IMHO, and where I live U-turns are rare, and not necessary. There is no way to signal that you are making a U-turn and the U-turner is going to have to occupy the lane of the right on red turner. This is, to me, improper lane usage. It’s legal in many places, just like going 55 in the passing lane is (that’s changing which is a good thing). The U-turn may be legal, but It’s not always a good idea.
Let’s look at another situation.
Two two lane roads intersect. In a controlled intersection.
A car heading south intends to make a right on red. A car heading north turns left on a protected arrow. The car turning left could and should make the turn from the inside lane to the inside lane, if the car turning left wanders into the outside lane and hits the car making a right on red, the car turning left is at fault because they wandered out of their lane. Improper lane usage.
Yep, it’s different in U-turns, and the law turns a blind eye to staying in the proper lane, cause frankly, in a U-turn, it can’t be done. In a U-turn situation, I would say both drivers are at fault.
The driver making the right has his turn signal on. The U-turner knows his intent. The U-turner also has their signal on. The person making the U-turn knows what the person turning right intends to do. The person making the right would think that the person with his left turn signal on is making a left. Sure, be careful, but like I said U-turns are very RARE.
With U-turns there may be two vehicles trying to enter the same space at the same time. This slows down both queues. And can usually be avoided if the U-turner would have planned a better route.
Must just be different areas of the country. Because, as I said, U-turns really aren’t needed here, and the people that make them have probably missed a turn (tourists). It bugs me a little because it is unexpected here, someone fucked up, and they slow both left and right turners down when they try to make their U-turn.
I don’t see that, I do see that folks slow down and/or stop because the U-turn was unexpected, slowing down both the right turners and the left turners.
U-turns are bad because they’re unexpected, and they’re unexpected because you think people shouldn’t do them, and you think people shouldn’t do them because there’s no good reason for them, and there’s no good reason for them because … they’re bad.
In your opinion, a U-turn, by its very nature, constitutes “improper lane usage”, but the law turns a “blind eye” to it by explicitly allowing it. You know this because U-turns are bad.
U-turns slow everyone down, because Right-on-red-turners are prone to pulling out without paying attention to U-turners, but this is justified because U-turns … are bad.
This all sounds awfully circular. It always comes back to your crotchety insistence that U-turns are somehow a tool of the weak-willed driver that won’t plan ahead. It’s fucking weird.
U-turns aren’t always because someone is lost and missed their exit. If I go to my doctor’s office during the day and I’m coming from my office, I always have to make a U-turn to get to the medical buildings. There’s a median where a left turn should be so I drive to the next intersection, make a U-turn, go back to the doctor’s office, and turn right into the parking lot.
Everyone knows you should be making a right at the next light (cutting off a U-turner if possible) and lefts at the next three lights (cutting off as many right-turners as possible), so that you end up in the same place you would have if you’d just made that first U-turn.
Amazingly, this exact scenario happened to me on 12/29. At a green light, I was making a U-turn, and another car was making a right into the part of the road I was U-turning into. I thought he was an idiot for not yielding the right of way to a vehicle already in the thoroughfare (mine). Then my wife and I started discussing it and discovered we didn’t really know the rule.
This is what the rule OUGHT to be, obviously: “Even if I’m making a U-turn, I’m already ON the street you WANT to turn onto, so you get to WAIT for me.” Thanks to this thread, it now seems clear that U-turning vehicles must yield to everyone else within reach of them. For one thing, the guy turning right doesn’t automatically know you’re making a U-turn–thanks to your left turn signal, he probably stupidly assumes you’re turning left. Then suddenly your car instead keeps spinning around, coming right at him as he makes his perfectly normal right turn. What the hell is he supposed to think? (Besides 'What the fuck are you doing, asshole" I mean.)
