# (No) Right turn on red? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 24, 2000, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-right-turn-on-red/9252 "2000-03-24T19:53:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-right-turn-on-red/9252/21 "2000-03-25T02:28:00Z")
I have a Rand McNally Atlas from 1985 and it says in Connecticut it is illegal to turn right on red. Maybe that has changed. Anyone know? Anyway they should term it “Pause on Red” as very few people actually come to a complete stop. They treat it as a yield sign ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-right-turn-on-red/9252/22 "2000-03-25T03:01:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Phobia: > \*\*A right turn at a red stop signal was illegal, when I was in high school. At some point Wisconsin passed a law making it legal to turn right at a red stop signal, after stopping. > > Doesn’t each state have to pass a law to make this legal in that state?\*\* Yes, traffic laws are passed at the state level, but the Federal government can strongly encourage a state to change its laws by withholding Federal highway construction funds (without which most of your state’s roads would go to hell) to state’s that don’t have laws they like. This was how the speed limit was changed to 55 (later changed back of course) and the legal drinking age was raised to 21. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2000, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-right-turn-on-red/9252/23 "2000-03-27T03:29:00Z")
Is there anyone else here who is seriously concerned for the health and well being of a fellow poster who actually had to DRIVE in New York City??? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![pluto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f08c70/32.png) [@pluto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pluto)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2000, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-right-turn-on-red/9252/24 "2000-03-27T13:54:00Z")
FWIW, the way the law was explained to me when I took Driver’s Ed (admittedly this was a loooong time ago. Henry Ford was our instructor) was that it was legal to make a turn when the light was red as long as you turned into the adjacent lane. This covers the right-turn and the left-turn-onto-one-way scenarios but specifically excludes turning from and/or into the second available lane. If this is, in fact, correct it is a law honored more often in the breach than the observance. * * * “I used to think the brain was the most important organ in the body, until I realized who was telling me that.” Emo Phillips ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2000, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-right-turn-on-red/9252/25 "2000-03-27T15:58:00Z")
I believe that NYC is the only place in the US where it is, as a rule, illegal to make a right on red. * * * Chaim Mattis Keller [ckeller@kozmo.com](mailto:ckeller@kozmo.com) “Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible. The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.” – Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-right-turn-on-red/9252.md?page=1)