Suppose you are driving down a street headed northbound, and you stop at a red light with the intention of turning right (this would be eastbound) when you find a break in the oncoming traffic. At the same time, there is a car heading westbound moving toward the same intersection, who gets in the left-turn lane with the intention of making a U-turn (this would also be eastbound) when he sees a break in the oncoming traffic.
Furthermore, let’s assume that U-Turns and right-on-red are both legal at this particular intersection.
If you’re waiting to turn right, how do you know the other driver is going to be making a U-turn and not a left turn? Cars don’t come with U-turn signals.
If I were making the right, I would probably assume he was about to make a left turn around me – and I would end up cutting him off.
Yes, Skammer, that’s likely, but nonetheless he does have the right of way. While it’s reasonable to assume that you and he wouldn’t interfere, once it becomes obvious that he’s doing a U-turn instead of a regular left, you have to stop and let him by.
I don’t think it would even matter if it were a U-turn or not, i.e., suppose the westbounder were just making a left turn. In either case, he’s already on the road, and you have to give him right of way.
If always pisses me off when I’m waiting in my left-turn lane to make a left turn, and some *sshole makes a right turn out of a parking lot, while I’m turning, and then honks at me (!!) for being in his way. This is only slightly worse than the jerks that make left turns out of parking lots into the left turn lane instead of into the traffic lane (usually when I want to turn left there).
If you don’t know what the driver with the right-of-way is going to do, for Pete’s sake, don’t even think of pulling out.
Turning right on red is not some sort of magical inherent priviledge. If it’s not safe (and “not knowing” is certainly an unsafe state), they you can’t turn.
Start from “I have a red light, maybe there will be a chance to turn, maybe not.”
Well, in foil and sabre, it’s whoever has initiated the attack first. If the defender successfully parries the attack then he/she has taken right-of-way. In epee, there is no right-of-way, so it’s a general free-for-all in epee.
Oh wait, you’re talking about traffic laws. In Mexico, the law is “he with the biggest engine rules the road.” Pretty much the same law from Houston south.
Considering the types of drivers that one has to contend with these days, having the right of way is a meaningless concept. In San Diego, it’s everyone for themselves, and my main concern is avoiding fools who’ve learned to drive by playing video games!
I had my Lincoln Contintal down there last month (fun trip in car). I’ll tell you, all those damn Nissan Tsuru taxis at 1/5 the size of the Lincoln ruled the road. I’d change your quote to “he with the sindicato rules the road” since if one hits you, twenty pop up to testify that it was your fault!
Since nobody has provided a factual answer yet, I’ll chime in with my opinion. If I had to list all traffic manuvers, from most acceptable to least, making a U-turn would be near last, just ahead of driving the wrong way down an 1-way street. In most places it’s illegal, and for good reason. If you’ve got to do it, you had better make sure there’s no traffic for a quarter mile. I also think that it should be a law that you have to pull into the nearest lane when turning, in which case this question would be irrelevant unless you were pulling into a 1 lane road.
However, I do not yet rule the universe, so these rules are not yet in effect. I’ll keep you all posted as to changes in the status quo.
A factual answer has in fact been given. The driver with a red light is required to yield to other traffic. The driver making the U-turn has a green light and must be yielded to. In practice the driver turning right may not realize until too late that the U-turner intends to turn U, and in some circumstances the U-turner could conceivably be held at least partly responsible if he were to strike the right-turning car.
In many states, the laws do not specify who has the right of way, only who must yield it. I would therefore not say that the U-turner has the unalienable right of way. Part of the reason for this is that even if you have a green light you can be held at least partly chargeable for an accident in which you strike a car that was required to yield the right of way but you had a clear chance to avoid hitting it. “Well, he turned left in front of me so I sped up and hit him broadside.”
Such a situation varies so much from incident to incident and state to state that it is hard to say with certainty exactly what would happen in a hypothetical situation.
As far as cops and insurance companies are concerned (which are all that count in the end), the U-turner with the green light has the right-of-way because, he has the green light. Making a right-turn on red essentially waives your right-of-way, you could have waited for the light to be green just like the gentleman making the U-turn did and done the safe thing. In fact some asshat could come barreling around for a left turn at any moment, plow into you, and probably end up collecting off your insurance because you “pulled out in front of him”. A right turn on red is an allowed convenience, not a legal right!
Actually, in most places, it’s legal. In the states I have driven in, a U-turn is legal when there is visibility for at least 500 feet (less than 0.1 mile), or if there is no sign prohibiting it. It seems to be prohibited if the intersection is too complex to allow it safely, or if the road configuration creates a high risk that there not enough space to complete a U-turn (bang into curb, back up, try again. . .).
For example, an intersection that provides a right-turning vehicle a green arrow while other non-interfering traffic has a green left-turn arrow would prohibit a U-turn by those left-turning vehicles.
It seems that since the right-turn-on-red law became so common that you don’t see many right-turn green arrows anymore except at complex urban intersections.
The basic U-turn law in California is that it is legal at any intersection unless specifically prohibited and is legal in the middle of any street unless it is in a “business district”.
This is a great question! It just so happens I took a defensive driving class this past Saturday (yes, I got a speeding ticket!) and this type of question came up. I can’t say what the law is in other states, but here in Arizona, anyone making a left-hand-turn NEVER has the right-of-way, even with a green light. We addressed the same issue in this way:
You are northbound and want to make a left-hand turn, so you get into the proper turning lane. There is only one lane going each direction on the east-west street. Another vehicle is southbound on the same street you’re on and he wishes to make a right-hand turn; this person gets into the right turn lane. You get a green arrow; the southbound vehicle still has a solid red light. As you make your turn, the southbound driver looks right, looks left, then makes his right turn. You have a collision with this vehicle. Who will be cited? Here in AZ, the person making the left turn (even with a green arrow!!!) will get the ticket for failing to yield the right of way. According to our instructor, a left-turning vehicle never has the right of way until it is given by other drivers.
It might be the law, but it pissed me off to hear this! Doesn’t seem fair!
Wow! I think I totally misunderstood the OP – you’re all talking about making a U-turn literally in the interesection?!? That just sounds friggin’ insane, and I’m going to have to look up the legality of that here in Michigan, because I just couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to do that. Of course my dismay reflects undivided roads. However, U-turns are generally legal in Michigan unless marked. I don’t see that they’re dangerous per se.
Recently I looked up left-turn right-of-way for a coworker here. Turns out that the car making left turns at an intersection – even without an arrow – has right of way once it’s begun the left turn execution if the left turn was started when traffic was clear enough (I don’t know how to interpret that). In any case, he told me thanks because his insurance company changed the status from substantially at fault to not at fault, saving the deductible and premium increases (I don’t know if he fought the ticket and won, though).