In Oregon, you can make a left turn on red as long as the street you’re turning on to is one-way. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on a one-way street or not. (cite) I doubt if you’ll get a honking if you don’t take them though. A lot of people are unaware of this rule and NW drivers are, in general, too polite to honk in that situation.
I strongly suspect that that rule is because post office delivery vehicles have the driver on the right side to facilitate delivery to streetside mailboxes. I also suspect that there will be exceptions where it’s impossible for some routes to be laid out with having either a left turn or a ridiculously long detour away from the route.
UPS not USPS - I mean, the Post Office might do it, too, but UPS vehicles have the driver on the left side. They do it because it saves time and gas and results in fewer accidents- but it’s not a complete ban
They still allow lefts when it’s feasible and necessary, especially in residential areas and intersections where right-hand turns are not feasible.
The UPS driver that comes to my place of business twice a day makes left-hand turns to get here, and when he goes further down the street to drop off packages, he makes another left.
EDIT TO ADD: I talked to a few of our UPS drivers a few months back and they said that the No Left Turn rule is not written in stone for residential deliveries or some intersections where it’s difficult to do.
In CA, cars must always yield right of way to pedestrians even if the pedestrian is pedestrianing illegally. Your buddy technically should have also gotten a ticket, but reaction time is taken into account.
Thr point is you can’t just knowingly plow into a jaywalkers blameless. But traffic coming to a halt? In my experience, “yielding” consists of honking and swerving, not often stopping.
Yeah, but turning left from a two-way is very rarely done at all, and I have never seen anyone honked at for not doing it.
But it seems a lot of Michigan left turns are timed assuming people will be turning left on red , and if they don’t, it screws everybody behind them up a cycle or two.
This is timely! I’m expecting a UPS delivery today and following it online. I was a bit confused by the route he was taking around my neighborhood, but the “no left turns” thing probably explains it. Thanks!
In Iowa we can always turn right on red unless there’s a sign saying otherwise, and we come to a complete stop regardless. We can also to the same for going left, IF going from one one-way to another.
My city doesn’t have tons of one-ways, so I don’t do it very often at all.
VicRoads (vic.aus) did an analysis, and decided that in this state, even though drivers wanted it, the additional deaths/casualties would not be politically sustainable.
A friend of mine in Bangalore calls it ‘road sonar’, and argues that it’s downright irresponsible not to honk all the time. Since there’s no concept of lane discipline, and road traffic laws are scarcely acknowledged even by the most careful drivers, constant honking is the only way anyone knows what anyone else is doing.
There’s a lot of people in these parts that won’t turn right on red. I’ve noticed that it happens predominately at red light photo enforced intersections. For some reason, people seem to equate “photo enforced” with “no turn on red” when, in fact, the two have nothing to do with one another.