In our local newspaper (I live in Michigan), there’s a weekly column written by a police officer, where people can write in with law questions and have them answered. (It’s either a traffic law-only column, or that’s just the subject everyone cares about, since that’s just about the only stuff covered.) Anyway, once someone wrote in to ask whether pulling into the bike lane to make a right turn was okay or not. The officer stated in no uncertain terms that it’s illegal here and that he had personally ticketed people before for doing exactly that. I remember this because I was a fairly new driver at the time, and I’d just had someone do that to me for the first time a few weeks before the column appeared.
Our bike lanes don’t become dashed lines near intersections, though, so if yours do, I don’t suppose it would be illegal at all.
My sister failed her driving test the first time because she did not use the shoulder for right turns. She warned me of this before I took my own test and I passed it the first time. Here you’re supposed to move as close to the curb (or whatever happens to be to the right) as you can before making your right turn. It’s the “invisible right turn lane”.
trubl, you seem to have formed and opinion on the law without having clue one of what your law really is. It might be good to find out if the right of someone to pull to the shoulder and make a right turn exists. It would really suck to find out they have the right and for you to get pulled over and have a stern talking to from an officer of the law.
And you, I accuse you of mass assholeishness and ignorance of your local statutes because where I’m from, you’d be both.
trubl- Neither the Tucson city code, nor the state driver handbook indicate that it is improper or illegal to make a right turn from the shoulder. In fact, the driver handbook ( http://www.dot.state.az.us/mvd/custsvcguide.htm ) indicates that you are to “stay close to the curb or edge of the road…”, when preparing to turn.
Also, on page 14, it states that you may pass a vehicle on the right in a business or residential district, “where the pavement is wide enough for two or more lanes of vehicles moving in the direction you are going”.
So it would seem that you are a bit out of line in impeding the flow of traffic when someone decides to pull around. I could be wrong, I’m neither in the state of AZ, nor am I a legal expert.
First off, I’d like to thank you for letting me know in no uncertain terms that I’m dealing with someone who utilizes extreme logic and reason in formulating his arguments. Or not.
Secondly, how you feel about a behavior has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not that behavior is legal and whether or not you automatically become an asshole for imposing what you feel is “right” on those obeying the law. Hell, even if they’re not obeying the law, unless you’ve got “Highway Patrol” written on the side of your vehicle, it’s not your job to block lanes or otherwise attempt to impose your will on your fellow drivers.
Instead of ignoring the posters who are trying to get it through that massively thick skull of yours that in some areas it’s legal (such as California) or, heaven forbid, looking up the traffic laws in your area, you instead choose to restate your original rant as if it’s somehow new information.
I don’t think it’s a question of whether you should move close to the curb (or whatever) before turning right or not, but whether it’s legal to do so when there is already a car at the intersection and you’d have to pull up beside them where there is no actual lane.
It appears that in California it’s legal, while in Michigan it’s not. And upon preview it’s possible it’s legal here in Arizona as well.
It is exactly that, whether it’s legal when there’s NO lane, paved, lined, or whatever. It’s not easy to determine from what I’ve researched. But I’ve never encountered it to this degree anywhere else I’ve lived, and it doesn’t “feel” right. Maybe it’s because I was taught, and have experienced in other towns, that you “wait your turn” in line if there’s one lane, whether you’re going left, straight, or right. Maybe my pit ought to be directed to the proliferation of asshats out there that just PLOW their way through town, as if the bigger the truck or SUV, the more they can disregard laws and/or common decency. I drive quite a bit in a city of 3/4 of a million, with no cross-town freeway. A drive across town on the surface streets can take an hour in heavy traffic. I’ve alot of opportunities to observe the general breakdown of common sense with vehicles. Maybe weaving around cars, tailgating, cutting people off, and speeding ‘just a little’ aren’t “offenses” either, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. Once I was crossing (in a crosswalk), in front of a stopped car, and got hit by it when I was RIGHT IN FRONT OF the driver. Looking straight never occured to him, and I attempted to and thought I had, make eye contact before crossing. At the time, I figured this was just one bad driver, an isolated occurance. 5 years later, I’ve long since come to accept that most drivers have the same (lack of) common sense as this one had. It’s more common for drivers to be like this than not. 3 more years til my youngest drives, and I am scaaaaared. End rant.
Way to go, trubl. You’ve ignored the helpful legal information I dug up on your city and state vehicle codes. You’ve boiled the problem down to, “the bigger the truck or SUV, the more they can disregard laws and/or common decency”, instead of reading, researching and realizing that you’re wrong.
Pay attention to what lezlers posted-your emotional estimation of the situation means exactly dick in the eyes of the law. Willful ignorance. “It’s legal, but it just don’t ‘seem right’ to me cause my Pappy taught me to wait in line and everybody should have to wait if I do”. Asserting what amounts to your morals on the general public by blocking their safe passage is just as rude and more dangerous than them trying to make a right-hand turn from the side of the roadway.
Keep playing “junior cop”(a distant cousin of the “junior mod”), and eventually you’ll get burned.
Are you missing the point? In the situtations I’m speaking of, there is NO “right side of the street”- on most of our streets, there’s no curb- it goes from pavement to dirt. Why do people feel the need to go offroad, I’ve said that before. It seems that people like to “create their own” lanes, just as they “create their own” parking spaces, I’m sure you’ve experienced THAT, haven’t you? And what chaps me about it is, it usually doesn’t matter how much actual ROOM there is, they will just squeeze right in there, and I’ve been forced to the left of my own lane many a time. As for turning right in bike lanes, it may be legal, and I feel comfortable conceding that. What happens when they’re turning right in a bike lane, but not at a light or stopsign, and a biker happens to be in the lane, I don’t know. And don’t really care, since I’m neither a biker nor a bike-laner turner.
Oh gee, thanks for all your time and trouble providing the link. How much do you charge, I’ll send you a check.
I gotta go with GaWd (heh) on this one, trublmakr - whether it “feels” right or not is of little interest to the law. Besides, I would hardly call pulling along side you (when there is room) to turn right is in any way comparable to “PLOW(ing) their way through town” or “weaving around cars”. I’m beginning to think your issue isn’t the legality of the situation. If you’ve got a problem with big trucks and SUVs, then you should just rant about that.
explain to me why you would WANT somone to wait when they dont need to?
cause personally if I am going straight/left and there is a chance somone behind me will want to go right I deliberatly move as far left as I can to give them room.
why the hell would you want anyone to spend more time in traffic than they need to? if theres room and traffic conditions are insanely dense then theres no reason to allow them to pass on the right.
but you go ahead and keep blocking those damn right turning drivers. after all the ones like me are usually getting a laugh out of what a fucktard you are.
tell me you arent one of those guys who tailgates on the freeway but when the car moves over to let you pass you only speed up enough to block them in instead of blowing past them?
No thanks, getting you to realize your ignorance, and possibly not be a prick on the road just because you don’t like the “feeling” of something would be payment enough…
You’re not being consistant trbl. First, you’re pissed because the drivers are using bike lanes. AFAIK, bike lanes are paved. When it’s pointed out to you that it is in fact legal to do so, then you never were talking about bike lanes after all, but talking about “create a lane”'s, and dirt shoulders instead.
Newsflash: bike lanes aren’t lanes for cars. By their very nature then, they are “create a lane’s” We’ve already established that it’s legal to use a bike lane to make a right turn, (at least in some States) so therefore, it’s legal to use “create a lane’s” when necessary to make a right turn.
It’s not a matter of “waiting your turn.” It’s not a matter of what “feels right”. It’s not a matter of how you were raised. It’s a matter of what’s LEGAL. We’ve established that the things you’re ranting about (unless it changes again) are legal. Therefore, you’ve got no cause to be exerting your will against those trying to engage in a LEGAL activity (or even if it’s not legal, it’s just an asshole thing to do).
Upon preview, what GaWd and Mauvaise have been saying.
I see some of this is turning into “bicyclists are the root of all road evil” thread. :rolleyes:
The problem with the California design, which I have experienced, is not that the bicyclist has to wait behind the car. The problem is that the car usually merges into the bike lane without a care for whatever was there in the first place.
As for the line “Why do bicyclists think the rules of the road do not apply to them”, I’ll make a deal, you don’t make me (a law abiding cyclist) responsibile for bikers who blow lights and I won’t make you take responsible for cars that do the same, as well as use the pedwalk as braking zone, merge on top of bikes, park in the bike lane, honk at me for not jumping-the-light-since-they-pulled-up-behind-me-and-demanded-to-get-the-jump-on-the-car-next-to-them-when-the-light-turns-green, etc. etc.
Sorry, all cyclists in my area do this, so no, I won’t take my comment back. I regularly have to instruct local cyclists on the proper way to use stoplights, stopsigns, proper signalling techniques, Etc. If you’re not local to me(San Jose, CA), then don’t worry about it, I’ll assume you know how to follow the law.
If you’re local to me, then fuck you, and learn how to ride, Pedals.
All of them? Somehow I doubt it. Most folks who make this “all” comment are inevitably are just focusing on the light-runners and never notice the law-abiding cyclist waiting out of their field of view.
I am not presently “local” to you, although I was in the Santa Cruz area for some time. What you claim certainly did not apply there. Of course, what a difference a small mountain makes.
And how! Those who ride in the mountains are people who ride for life. Those who ride in the valley generally ride as a hobby, for excercise, or in some misguided attempt to do mother earth some good.
Maybe I say “all”, because in my commute, I follow the same general path every day. In that commute, one would generally assume that the same riders can be found on a semi-regular basis. So yes, you’re right. I didn’t go to my local cycle club and take a survey to see how well they follow the laws.
Ooh, I bet I know where that intersection was! It was Route 1 south in South Brunswick, at the Raymond Road intersection. I used to drive by there every day on my way to work and see the accumulation of in-a-big-hurry drivers waiting in the parking lot of that run-down motel for their turn at the lecture and the ticket on days when the local gendarmes needed to bring in a few bucks.
And yes, there were a lot of accidents at that corner. Impatient drivers would pull onto the shoulder, not into an actual legal traffic lane, and then zip up to the intersection at top speed, endangering those who were following the rules and waiting until there was a lane to enter.
Depends on how much of a cynic you are whether you believe it was largely a safety issue or a revenue-producer.
That’s funny. Although you guessed the wrong one, I regularly pass by that intersection you mentioned, and I totally agree with your assessment. (“Solar Motel”, right?)
My lecture was on Rt 130, from an East Windsor cop. And if it pleases the crowd, I was driving a huge old Dodge Ramcharger, a vehicle that would be called an SUV these days. I suppose I got what I deserved: I was a 22-year-old punk plowing up the shoulder in a tank, only concerned with breezing by all of the folks who were waiting their turn.
