In California, if I turn right onto a multi-lane road, I must end up in the rightmost lane upon completion of the turn. If I turn left, I can pick any lane. Why is that?
I do not believe you are correct you must end in the same lane you started in
I was going to agree with you, Chris, but then decided to look for a citation, and it looks like the OP is in fact (broadly) correct:
http://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/hdbk/turns.htm#turnexamples
Holy shit.
That’s whack. Now I need to look up the rules in MN.
In MN you move into the nearest legal lane.
I’m a California driver and the OP is correct. When making right turns from a one-way street into another one-way street you can turn into any lane that’s safe, but you do have to make sure that no cars will be moving into any of the possible destination lanes. Otherwise, when making a right turn into a non-one-way street you do have to start and end a right turn in the right-most lanes. I’ve always thought that it’s for safety and traffic flow reasons. That’s because if you do turn right into a lane that is not the right-most lane then there’s a chance you can impede a car that’s moving through that lane. It also provides that other driver some predictability about where you’re going to end up. I can see if I were that other driver (who’s not in the right-most lane) and I see that you’re turning right into my street I can be fairly certain that you won’t be driving straight into my lane when you turn. I can just keep driving through the intersection. It’s a different situation when making left turns. I don’t see any particular destination lane that is necessarily inherently safer than any other one, and you should only be making a left turn if you can complete it without impeding traffic coming into the same street. That’s why you generally have to wait longer before making a left turn. Maybe I’m all wrong, but I’ve lived with these driving rules all my life and they make sense to me.
Well, it doesn’t make sense to me. It is one of the worst features of our usually rational traffic laws. Consider the person making a right on red (or even green), it creates a conflict with the opposing left hand turner and is dangerous. Many times I have been making a right on green almost to collide with a left hand turner who wants to grab the right lane. Never mind that the dumbass should be yielding the right of way to all opposing traffic. Of course, being close to Glendale, idiotic aggressive drivers are the norm around here.
There is no reason for this, and the law should be changed. But they are too busy putting up red light cameras. It’s all about the revenue. Safety is the last thing they worry about around here.
This is insane.
A left turn into the right lane is asking to collide with someone making a right turn from the opposing direction. Look at the fourth picture on the California DMV page and imagine you’re in the red car. You make a wide left into the rightmost lane. How is that not a conflict with a car (not pictured) in the position of the topmost white arrow turning right?
My Driving instructor lied to me
True but as mentioned just above, the left-turner is required to yield right-of-way to the opposing right-turner regardless of what lane anybody is in.
Drives me crazy too. And is one of the reasons I almost never make a U turn. You can’t turn into the proper lane.
(Almost because there is one spot in the county where it’s excepted and expected)
Wouldn’t it be simpler to just mandate that left turns go into the left lane and right turns into the right–and both can do so simultaneously–rather than expecting people to yield in the midst of their great swoops across the intersection?
The basic point is that any driver at any position should be able to look at another vehicle and know, based on that other vehicle’s position and signal, where it’s going. Under this California system, there’s no way for anybody else to tell where a left-turner may end up.
In general, people start left turns far too early, and with too large a radius. When there is no median this causes them to encroach on the oncoming lane. When there IS a median, missing the median causes them to overshoot the left lane, and if they were trying for that lane, they have to button-hook to get back into it. Where the median is extra wide it is almost comic how poorly they control their path.
Right turns tend to be less of a problem, because the driver will hit the curb if they start turning too soon, so this causes them delay the turn enough. Still they are often lazy and end up using 2-3 lanes rather than cranking the wheel far enough. Especially likely when one hand is occupied with a cell phone.
The CA law is probably just giving up ever getting any sizable percentage of drivers to be able to make a proper left turn. Making a proper right turn just requires the effort. Doing the left well seems to require more understanding and planning than average drivers can manage.
I suppose it would be simpler, not sure what rationale is applied when coming up with these laws. I can tell you from my observation that it is very difficult to mandate driver behavior. It is hard enough to get most people stop when the light is red. If you allow opposing left turners and right turners to go at the same time then you’ll have all kinds of sideswiping happen.
The thing that I don’t understand about the law as described by the OP is what if I’m turning right but have to make a left turn at the next light? How long do I have to wait before I can move to the left lane?
The same rules apply if you were just normally changing lanes. Signal, check the available space etc etc.
Bottom line is if a cop is behind you and sees you merge immediately after making the right turn, he can ticket you.
I got a ticket here in LA several years ago for exactly that maneuver. (And on the way to paying the ticket, I watched a squad car do exactly the same thing.)
Yes. Support and practice left turns that begin with an advance straight into the intersection, as was discussed for different reasons in another thread.
By the time you’re leaving the intersection–entering your destination lane proper–you should be fully out of your turn, steering straight again. If you’re driving anything smaller than a large box truck, there’s no need to infringe on any other lanes.
One of the reasons people turn early, is often another car is entering from the other side also making a left turn. You both can’t occupy the center of the intersection at the same time.
Still no excuse for not turning into the proper lane though. Many people are just thoughless lazy drivers that’s all.
The minimum turn signal distance is 100 feet. So if your intended left turn is less than 100 feet from the right turn you just made, then you can’t make the left turn legally and you’ll just have to go around the block (according to the Code).
That can work if the two left-turners passed and hooked around each other–each one’s arc crossing the preceding straight path of the other driver.
But even I realize we’d never get people to understand that. :rolleyes:
But if you have multiple left turning cars across from each other, you’d be asking them to interleave as they make the turn. GAH!