The hell? You can’t turn right from a middle lane! :smack:
Where do you drive?
This is like, rule 1 where I was taught how to drive. Unless there are arrows telling you otherwise, you can only turn right from the rightmost lane.
-FrL-
I think she’s talking about a middle lane next to a dedicated right turn lane… not a middle lane next to a thru lane. It’s illegal either way though.
As others have pointed out I too use my turn signals subconsciously; and I do so all the time, every time. I can’t imagine doing more than a 20/30% lane shift without using my blinker.
Guess I don’t like getting rear-ended.
Of course, to offset all the morons such as Bearflag (who get a kind middle finger from me when they swerve past), you have all the Blue-haired old ladies who seem intent on making a right turn around the world as that particular blinker is always on.
On four lane roads there are often intersections with two right turn lanes, but clearly maked by legal right turn arrows both on pavement and by wire; on smaller roads you sometimes find two turn lanes as well – when they indent the sidewalk/lane divider (left turns) prior to the light. But again, as Fry point out, these instances are clearly marked…thus I wouldn’t want to be either besides nor :::shudder::: inside curlcoat’s vehicle. The four-wheeled one anyway as I have no idea of what she actually looks like.
OK, my definitions come from when I learned to drive in Washington, over 35 years ago. I wasn’t aware that California defined the street in front of my house as a highway.
Lucky doesn’t appear to have anything to do with it since not only do we do it in front of the various police agencies without getting tickets, we also see them doing it as well. It’s possible that there are laws down here that, not supercede but what? add to? the general CA laws that allow multiple right and left turn lanes.
Kathy
I am using the word random in the same way you are using bogus - laws that really do not apply to modern driving and should be done away with. Laws that are rarely enforced, at least here, unless the officer wants to stop the car for some other reason.
Simply because something is a rule doesn’t make it right or safe. For example, it simply isn’t a good idea here to wait until a crosswalk is completely clear before making a right turn thru it, but that law is still on the books. Except WRT to driving conditions, almost all speed laws shouldn’t be applied evenly, yet they are. Laws tend to be made to cover the lowest common denominator.
Kathy
Not a psychic (or a pyshic either), so I don’t have any idea what you are responding to since you cut the crap out of my post. If you obsess about how you treat your fellow humans, then am I to assume you either obsess about how to treat them badly, or that you don’t consider me to be a human? Either way, if you drive with your head up your bum, that will be the only time I am at all likely to respond. Oh, and snicker at you would treat me with courtesy and respect in person - if you can’t do it online, don’t do it in person. Hypocrisy doesn’t look good on anyone.
Kathy
Originally Posted by curlcoat
Again, I haven’t looked at the rules you are citing due to the amount of time it would take on dial up, but I personally am not citing an exception for driving down here. We are allowed to turn right, on red, after a stop, from the center lane without whatever appropriate lane markings and/or signs are in the rule you cite above.
And yet, I have just spent days posting in this thread that we do exactly that here. We also turn left from some middle lanes.
I live in Orange County California, which is where I do most of my non-freeway driving. I actually drive all over the west coast but this area seems to be the only area with multiple turn lanes being common.
Kathy
Yes, a middle lane next to a right or left turn lane only. I like how you are so sure that it is illegal down here tho. I’m not sure and I live here…
Kathy
Snort. Stay out of Southern California then, since not only do we all do it here, we tend to honk at tourists who don’t. Have yet to see anyone get hit for doing but I have seen folks rear ended for not doing it when the local behind made the mistake of assuming the tourist in front was turning instead of just sitting there. Yes, the local was at fault but it does show that making the turn is what is done here.
Kathy
Wait, multiple turn lanes? You mean with arrows? Well that’s okay. I thought you meant turning right from a middle lane not marked as a turning lane.
I live in Irvine, BTW.
-FrL-
From subsequent posts, I guess she means what I thought she meant in the first place.
For whatever its worth, the California Driver’s Handbook does not allow for the kind of manouvre Curlcoat is describing, but I think she has already said she’s not sure it’s actually legal, she just thinks its the accepted practice.
-FrL-
If you don’t drive out of the planned community of Irvine, you probably don’t notice that there are areas that don’t have the arrows painted on the lanes (if they were there originally) most likely due to lack of money, where folks still turn from the middle lane. I live in Santa Ana and frequently drive to Riverside and San Berdu counties - there is probably more money in Irvine than in all three of those places. If nothing else, your police force certainly brings in a lot of money! :rolleyes: I did not appreciate having to go to court to prove that it is physically impossible to hang my disabled parking thingee from the rear view mirror of my car!
Kathy
Yes, I never said that I was sure it was legal, I just say that it is done quite a bit here and the police not only don’t stop us, they do it themselves. If nothing else, I pointed out the “don’t turn until the crosswalk is clear” law that is still on the books and noone pays attention to, and said it is quite possible that our making turns from middle lanes falls under the same thing.
Which all takes us back to the original post, more or less. Driving is not about knowing and following every law on the books, it is about being safe and if possible, polite. And in Southern California as well as other dense areas, it is about getting as many cars as possible thru any given place at any given time.
Kathy
Hey BTW don’t get the wrong idea about me… I’m a student at UCI, not a native Irvineer. 
-FrL-
I’ll look out for this next time I’m driving in Santa Ana (happens fairly regularly). What you’re describing seems a tad unsafe to me, as people in the actual turn lanes can’t be counted on to know that people in non-turn lanes are going to be turning into their lanes.
-FrL-
Police do a lot of things while driving that aren’t legal (while not using sirens and lights, I might add - just casually driving) - I wouldn’t use that as a yardstick for measuring what they won’t ticket you for. It’s very much a case of don’t do as we do.
If they do, that only makes them less than 100% consistent. It doesn’t mean that they’re wrong with regard to turn signals.
Your argument is the logical equivalent of saying, “How can you declare that shoplifting is wrong? Have you never fudged your income taxes? Even a little bit?”
My point was that those people calling me names are hypocrites. Not everyone in the thread called me names. My argument was neither that the illegalities and unsafe practices of others justify my own, nor that those with less than perfect compliance with the law are unjustified in pointing out the fact that my actions are illegal and perhaps unsafe.
CVC = California Vehicle Code
Unless you can cite law that says a municipality can trump state law