:rolleyes:
We’ve been through this already. It’s a matter of how I read the law where I drive. As I interpret the relevant drivers manual, I am basically required, by law to stay out of the intersection until I can complete the turn.
Why clog up traffic making left-turners wait for right-turners? If people turning right just stay in the closest lane, and people turning left stay in the closest lane, then everybody can turn at the same time. Why on earth would a state choose to slow everybody down by allowing people to make sloppy right turns into the left lane?
I know: states are different. When I learned to drive in Colorado, it was a pretty rigidly-enforced law. If you made a right turn into any lane other than the right lane, you’d get a ticket. When I moved to California, it never occurred to me that such a thing would be allowed, and I almost got into an accident my first week there when some idiot made a left while I was making a right and we both went into the right lane.
I think that rule is referring to not entering the intersection to go straight or turn if the traffic in front of you is backed up from the next light. There is almost always space for one car to turn left before the red under ordinary circumstances.
Exactly. These are the ‘anti-gridlock’ laws I was talking about. You can enter the intersection to turn left, as long as you know you will be able to complete the turn at some point without blocking the intersection. If you get caught in the intersection because oncoming traffic is completely congested, you can be cited. But if traffic is light enough that you know you’ll be able to complete the turn at the light transition to red, go ahead and pull out into the intersection.
I’m a bit confused as to how people think they will get t-boned if they pull into an intersection to make a turn. You think the stopped traffic on your left is just going to go full speed as soon as they see green even though there’s plainly a car in front on them?
Here in Michigan, some intersections have a left turn light that flashes red while the thru traffic has a green, indicating that a left turn is permitted when safe. Once the thru traffic light turns red, the left turn light turns to green arrow, indicating that a left turn has the right of way. Works pretty nice- I know of plenty of places in other states that I sat at a red left arrow that I could have safely made the turn. However, there are some kinks- every once in a while, the left turn ROW is before the thru traffic, and if you come up on the intersection with a green thru light and a flashing red left light, wanting to turn left, thinking that you’ll get the green arrow, and then it turns to solid red. Better hit the gas and clear the intersection before the cross traffic t-bones you! (And yes, Snarky Kong, people in Michigan just might do that.)
And the above implies that you pull over the stop line and wait in the intersection to make the left turn. Duh.
Unless you live in California (or any other state) where it’s perfectly legal to turn left into the right-most lane, and those sitting at the red light have an obligation to be sure the intersection is clear and safe before proceeding to make their right-hand turn. See the California Driver Handbook illustrations here, the text for which reads (bolding mine):
It’s very common here to have driveways or parking lot entrances that are immediately past the intersection, necessitating making wide left turns if one wishes to turn into those openings. If the person sitting at the red light doesn’t come to a complete stop and wait until approaching traffic has completely cleared the intersection before proceeding to turn right on red, any accident that results would be entirely their fault. So never turn right on red if oncoming traffic is turning left in front of you.
That’s exactly how it works here in Texas too, Shayna.
In Idaho the traffic manual is ambiguous. Of course, in Idaho we generally don’t have gridlock either, or any other problem that would necessitate driving like that. Of course, with only the rarest of exceptions any road that is large/travelled enough to have a striped left turn lane will have a protected left turn cycle as well. Unprotected lefts are most often seen on residental roads that often don’t even rate striping.
As noted, the traffic manual is ambiguous: it clearly doesn’t care. Of course, even big-city-Boise’s traffic pattens don’t necessitate pulling out and delaying cross-traffic for your own benefit, so you generally don’t see anyone doing it but the asshat reckless drivers who’ve recently moved up from California -the ones who run red lights, whip back and forth between lanes, cut people off- those sorts. The unsafe drivers.
As for you poor folks who live in places that require such driving, for example where they have with four lanes each way and don’t bother with protected lefts, well, your road engineers are retarded and you’re all paying the price, that’s for sure. I’ve driven in a few states and it’s a function of the road planners and not so much city size; even Las Vegas manages to have decent intersction lights.
We don’t have those laws where I am. I can see the thinking behind them - sorta kinda - but I can’t also help feeling they’re redundant in a way. If you are intending to turn left but can’t because the left-hand street is blocked up, then the guys waiting on your right to go into that street are unable to move anyway. Similarly, you will block the traffic behind you if you can’t move regardless of whether you’re behind the line or not. I can’t see the laws helping much.
There’s an intersection in Calgary where you are turning left from a freeway ramp up to another major road, and the lights are set up so that you can’t go on your green because the road is filled, then your light turns red and you wait while the cross traffic fills the road again, then your light turns green and you can’t go because the road was filled again while you waited. It is against the law, but has become common practice to block the intersection while waiting, because no cars from the on ramp would get onto that road until rush hour was over otherwise. It is a spectacularly badly planned road, but that is not uncommon in Calgary. So yeah, we can blame the city planners, begbert, but that doesn’t get us to work in the morning.
(Turning east from Deerfoot southbound onto 32nd Ave for any Calgarians who care.)
Well, according to this thread, turning left is a simple matter of joining the SDMB.
Drive Defensively: … Never trust another driver to do either what you think they are going to do, or what they should do in a particular situation.
People are increasingly distracted, negligent and downright idiotic in their driving. Or perhaps there is a statistically smaller, more wreck-tending bad driver subpopulation at work here. Perhaps people wouldn’t purposely drive all Death Race 3000, but it isn’t unusual for distracted drivers to cause collisions while they are masturbating/cell-phoning/texting/shaving/putting on makeup/watching the TVs embedded in their dashboards.
As far as I know, what the OP describes is perfectly legal in New Mexico. Oddly enough, while I saw it all the time in Albuquerque, I see it here much less in Las Cruces. Many more people in Las Cruces sit behind the line. Personally, I suspect it’s the Texans causing this behavior.
You forgot they’re also changing their pants, as one recent Allstate commercial suggests frequently happens.
Pulling out into the intersection (keeping the wheel straight ahead) is virtually a legal requirement in some places in New York. The corner of Rockaway and Linden Blvds especially – both are major 2-way arteries through Brooklyn and both are 3 lanes in each direction.
When you are travelling in front of me and you want to make a left turn from the suicide lane (center left turn lane) for the sake of all that is right and holy, GET THE FUCK IN THAT CENTER LANE NOW! Do NOT start braking 200 yards before your turn while still in the straight ahead lane. Do NOT go creeeeeeeeeeeeeeping into that center lane at such a shallow angle that it would require fifty parsecs of distance to distinguish the parallax from your original line of travel. Definitely do NOT panic out and decide the center lane is too scary and STOP in front of me in order to make that left turn.
It’s perfectly simple. Maintain your current rate of speed. Put your left turn signal on. Merge into the center lane briskly, preferably using no more than five car lengths of distance to do so. THEN slow down as you approach your street, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear in order to make your turn safely. I won’t get pissed at you for the hold up if there’s someone coming the other way in the center lane, as this is a situation which requires caution and observation. If, on the other hand, there is nobody in that middle lane for miles I will get pissed at you and the least you’ll get is a good honking at.
I swear the next idiot who holds me up due to their insane paranoia and fear of the suicide lane will find out the fun way* one of the reasons it’s nicknamed thusly.
*Fun for ME, anyway!
Around here, most people haven’t quite figured that the green arrow does not mean that Ollie Queen is coming to get you, but that you have a clear left turn. Nope they move up, stop at the intersection, and WAIT.
No idiot, the other cars aren't going to start foreword. They all have red lights except the lane you are in.
Well not anymore, since you waited for the arrow to turn yellow before pulling out.
Some will even go through so slow that the light will turn red while they are in the intersection. They will then stop, realize that they are blocking traffic, and finally, tentatively, make that turn. A turning arrow that should let five or six cars turn left, sometimes only gets one or two at best.