The Vancouver Left:
-Advance into the intersection when it turns green.
-Wait until the light turns yellow.
-Turn.
-Watch three cars behind you do the same thing as the light turns red.
The Calgary left:
-Advance into the intersection when it turns green.
-Wait until the light turns red.
-Wait until three cars have run the fresh red.
-Turn.
-Watch three cars behind you also turn left.
I see that advancing into the intersection on green actually is illegal in California (if you can’t clear the intersection before the red light). (Third last paragraph - “Solid Green.”) I can only imagine the traffic snarls if people actually obeyed that rule.
Entering the intersection on a green obviously is not as universal as I thought. I still think backing out of an intersection is the mark of a rookie, bad driver, though. If your local law is don’t enter until you can clear, then don’t enter - don’t enter then back out.
cerberus, I’m sure your method works just fine in Hooterville and even in metropolitan Bugtussle. Please stay out of real cities. I’m not sure if you’ll get rear-ended or shot first, but surely one.
For the record, California is apparently one of the exceptions you mention:
I do not think that is the meaning of the quote. I read that as referring to vehicles going straight through the intersection, and the intent is to avoid gridlock when the lights change. If you are making a left turn, you are never going to get completely across the intersection.
However, I may be wrong, and I will look for something to clarify this.
Boyo Jim
Gee, fuckwit, does Atlanta qualify as Hooterville? Worst fucking traffic and surface streets in the Southeast? One of the top five worst traffic cities, in there with LA, Boston, NYC, Chicago?
:rolleyes:
At least in “Hooterville”, we have lots of intersections with left turn lanes, with left turn arrows. And my two-decade experience with Atlanta drivers suggests that I really, really shouldn’t trust the worst of them when it comes to things like inter-car spacing, use of turn indicators, right-of-way issues and not blasting through intersections.
Because my defensive driving tactics are aimed at the worst case drivers.
Apparently so.
Very rich, coming from a massive metropolitan complex like Madison, Wisconsin. How many millions of people in the Madison MSA? Gee, what is it, a college town of ~250,00 versus a metropolitan area of ~5,000,000? Dude, you’re basically a super-sized town along the lines of Athens, Georgia. Hell, Wisconsin total and Atlanta are approaching a tie, population-wise. And who is the podunk/hooterville here? Asshat.
Atlanta has some of the worst and most challenging highway problems and surface street problems in the nation.
I never seem to hear how bad the driving is in Madison, but plenty on the traffic in Atlanta.
cite
On the plus side, we seem to have real problems with density and congestion, but less so with road rage, though I suspect that we’re catching up. And I’d add that many of us in Atlanta are mixed in from other populations, which adds to the fun to be had as we try to “average out” the differences in driving culture.
But I’m not impressed by the relative challenges of driving in a 5,000,000+ city versus those of driving in a medium-sized college town ranked by ePodunk.com as #3 in its’ class.
If it is illegal to do this in Cali, then why does LA not have many left arrows? Odd that one of our major metropolitan centers would not have something in use which 99% of the other cities have.
The population for Madison is ~250,000, not ~25,000.
I suspect that traffic laws and regulations vary widely by city, county and state. Even where there is state law in effect, in many cases cities and counties are free to have some leeway in legislating local variations.
Sounds like it–what with drivers making left turns who refuse to enter the intersection, jamming up traffic even more. 
:rolleyes:
So I checked with the Georgia Driver’s Manual
On the turning/intersection issue:
I’m not seeing any of this “hang out in the intersection” shit here. I’m seeing “stay at the edge with your signal on until you can complete the turn completely.”
As for defensive driving:
Let’s read for detail shall we?
Duh, you don’t make a left from the far right lane.
Again duh.
They are suggesting, as is the standard safety precaution, that you not turn your steering wheel until you actually making the turn. There is nothing in this statement about where you should or should not stop.
Again duh, the left turner has to give way to any car approaching from the other direction.
No one in this thread has said any different.
Again common sense if you are turning onto a multi-lane street.
So just where in that paragraph is the stay at the edge of the intersection shit you were talking about?
I failed my driving test for doing exactly what you describe, so I’m pretty sure it’s not proper procedure in Quebec, either. It’s common, and it happens - but fuck the hell off if you’re unhappy sitting behind me. On some intersections I feel comfortable moving out, at others I don’t. I always have my turn signal on, so people can go into the other lane if they want.
I refuse to disobey the law, jam up intersections and put people in danger so you can get somewhere two seconds faster.
I looked through the driver’s handbooks for a number of states, and found that they were often ambiguous or didn’t address the issue. However, the Colorado driver’s handbook plainly says not to enter the intersection.
Some sources (state police, etc.) in other places say that either practice is legal, but that it’s safer to stay out of the intersection if you can’t complete the left turn.
I grew up and learned to drive in Chicago. I also spent a dozen years living in Washington DC and navigating through most of the northeast corridor. I will admit that Madison is comparative child’s play, but even here people know enough to pull out into the intersection waiting for a turn.
I’m guessing you just don’t make turns at busy intersections without an arrow. Because with that tactic, you really can’t: the traffic flow from the other direction just doesn’t allow it. You’d be really fucked in Chicago, because there are many intersections with a left-turn lane, but no arrow – you can’t (legally, at least) change your mind and go straight if the oncoming volume is too heavy.
The thing Cerebus quoted said not to begin the turn until “after yielding” to oncoming traffic. It seems to me that pulling into an intersection before the oncoming traffic has all gone by would be to start the turn before yielding to oncoming traffic.
It’s not as clear to me as the California wording, but it does look to me like the Georgia wording is saying to stay behind the line til there’s a gap big enough to get through.
-FrL-
It may well be standard practice to do this in Chicago - I generally drive in or near the Atlanta/Birmingham MSAs. If the prevailing practice requires such left turns in the intersection, so be it. But if I can avoid such things, I generally do so.
Rick
At best, you may infer ambiguity in the GDM. The way I read at the intersection is at the white line prior to entering the intersection. I think this is reasonable, given that some manuals in other places explicitly give directions about turning after driving into or in the intersection. I don’t see anything in there about entering the intersection.
Having said that, plenty of people both a)turn while idling in the intersection, and b)run the red light or c)rush the yellow light. I choose not to do those things.
As has tried to be explained earlier, if you do it properly (ie pull forwards into the intersection), you CAN’T run the red light, as being over the stop line means that light no longer applies to you.
There are several intersections here in Sydney, where if you were turning in front of me, we’d be there all morning. And I’ve been stuck behind people like that, and other drivers have done dangerous, frustrated moves as a result. I used to turn across the oncoming traffic on the main road to the airport - I was turning into a minor street. The stream of vehicles coming towards us was as good as infinite, for our purposes. There was never a break in it, EXCEPT when the lights changed, and then one car could get through. If I was the third car back from the intersection, that would mean waiting through three light cycles. If a timid person was up front - and I’ve seen this happen - all manner of shit would ensue. Usually after the third or fourth light cycle, the timid person would either give up and go straight, or panic on the orchestra of horns behind him, but panic AFTER hesitating yet again, and then go through dangerously after the cross traffic had started moving.
If you are too nervous to do basic things like turning on a light, you should not be driving. I have a friend who is a nervous driver. She always was, and one day that caused her to have an accident. Now, she’s even worse, and I had to offend her by saying I’d rather take the train, thanks. It’s as bad as aggression out there on the road.