Had a near miss 2 days ago: Was waiting in a left-turn lane with turn signal operating. Light turns green (there’s no left-turn arrow) and I wait for some oncoming traffic to pass. There’s a gap and then one final oncoming car.
But the driver is slowing, as if she plans to stop at the light (though it was still green for her). When she’s down to about 10 mph (speed limit is 45) I figure she really is stopping, and decide to turn left. She then notices that her light is green, and speeds up. I stomp on the gas and she misses me by very little. She honks as we each depart the intersection.
Because I was turning left, she had the right of way. But by slowing well below normal traffic speed, I think she gave it up. Am I right?
I’m not sure if there’s a point at which someone might be driving in such a ridiculously perverse and malicious manner that they might bear some responsibility. But in general (at least ideally) my approach is to make the turn only if they physically cannot hit me, because they’d always get the benefit of the doubt.
I guess that begs the question - absent a collision, in the situation you described, do you bear any responsibility? Would a cop who saw it ticket you for the near miss? And there I’d say certainly the cop should take into account whether the other approaching driver were driving erratically. But IANAL.
The way many people handle that (i.e. waiting for oncoming traffic to allow you to turn) is to pull far enough out into the intersection and wait, so that if they are still coming through even on the yellow, everyone knows you will turn as soon as you can. In the worst case you can usually start your turn in the fraction of a second between the time oncoming traffic gets their red light, and cross traffic is still waiting for their green; meanwhile the cross traffic sees you out there and may not be so fast off the line to give you a chance to get clear.
This is not strictly legal, at least not in my jurisdiction, but it seems to be tolerated if you’re not a total jerk about it.
In the U.K., if the road you are turning into is clear and the only thing preventing your turn is oncoming traffic, you are supposed to pull forward into the junction and wait. At many busy junctions without a turn filter, if you did not do this you would never get through the junction at all. The only opportunity to turn is at the end of the light cycle when oncoming traffic must stop. If you have entered the junction under these conditions, you have right of way to complete your turn and exit the junction regardless of whether the lights have changed - for the precise reason that you don’t want to put people under pressure to turn if they are not completely sure that oncoming traffic has stopped.
I was confused to discover that in some states the law is the same as the U.K.; whereas in others it’s illegal to pull forward into the junction unless you can immediately complete your turn. It’s a bit weird that the states can’t unify basic traffic laws, it’s not as though they are associated with any political agenda.
Here’s a potential story from the other driver’s perspective:
“I approached an intersection where I had a green light, and intended to go straight. I saw someone in the oncoming traffic waiting to turn left across my lane. I slowed a bit to give them more chance to make the turn, but as I got to the intersection and they clearly were not going to take the chance to turn, I picked up speed again. Then, after sitting and waiting and not turning for my whole approach, they tried to turn into the intersection right in front of me and almost caused an accident.”
