I’m from Italy and the first time we had a family vacation in the US we were honked a lot because we would stop at red lights. Only after 3 days we discovered that there’s the “turn-on-red” rule and we were confused: if it’s red, why can you turn?
In Italy (but I guess in all Europe works like this) we have a different approach on these situations: if the driver is at a traffic light and can make a turn, but it could be unsafe, the light turns into a blinking yellow light, so that the driver know that it must check well before going on.
That’s a different situation though. A green arrow means you have full right of way to make the turn. Right-on-red is more like a stop sign.
Insanely frustrating how 50+% of this thread is people flatly arguing against a situation they just dont understand.
Not even a disagreement of opinion, just flatly arguing about a topic that has nothing to do with turning right on a red light intersection.
Personally I do think that’s the real reason behind right on red: saving money for towns who don’t want to invest in more complicated traffic lights. Trading increased injuries for saving a little money
Except, as I understand it, that arrow should be yellow and flashing, to indicate that pedestrians might also be crossing.
Or, you know, the intersection could be sensibly designed so that pedestrians weren’t at risk of being run over by cars, but that’s not the American way.
US has the blinking yellow as well, but usually only in the left turn lane. Which just means yield to oncoming, go if it’s safe.
I remember when right on red was first implemented. The purpose was to save on fuel during the energy crisis back in the 70s/80s. It’s saves some huge amount of green house gasses. A lot of localities spent a fortune on “no right on red” signs.
Theoretically, right on red is a good thing, but theoretically, everybody follows the rules and nobody makes mistakes.
Mexico, USA and Canada all have right on red. Exceptions are New York and Montreal, from what I know.there was a study that convinced Quebec to allow right turn on red everywhere except Montreal.
I can’t find the details on this study. Been looking for about an hour, but I’m not willing to pay 12 paywalls to potentially find more about it.
Does the blinking yellow light allow drivers to turn onto pedestrians crossing with a green pedestrian light? Cause here that’s the only way you can turn in many intersections and that’s not exactly safer. You shouldn’t put this responsibility on the drivers at all.
In Australia, “blinking yelloe” means “drive with caution” - roadway may be used bey pedestrians, slower traffic may have merged to faster, the traffic lights normal function might be impeded. Just basically a catch all for “be careful”.
Having acid that it’s very rare that you’d find a blinking yellow on a turn across pedestrians - you’d get green arrow or light, pedestrians get green walk, and driver waits for pedestrians. It’s not rocket science. You don’t turn on red though.
Then again we still have thrse fellas so maybe dont listen to us : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_turn
In the UK a blinking yellow means you can go if there’s no pedestrians but you’ll only ever get that at a pedestrian crossing on a straight road. Never an intersection. As in, a place where the only reason the light would ever change is a pedestrian pressed the button to request it. Usually then they’ll go red for a few seconds, then blinking yellow to allow extra time for slower people to cross.
At intersections you might get green arrows to indicate you can go only in that direction. For example it might allow going straight but not turning because pedestrians are crossing the side road.
There’s never a case where red means anything other than you must stop and I’ve never seen a case where both vehicles and pedestrians would get a green light for the same piece of road at the same time.
Interesting, so blinking yellow obviously means the same everywhere but where these are placed varies a lot. In Greece I’ve never seen green for both cars and pedestrians either, but there are many cases where pedestrians get green and cars yellow for the same part of road (usually when cars turn right at intersections). From the answers I take it the original comment probably meant cars turning into the path of other cars, not people, which sounds a bit better.
If you turn left you’re crossing the path of everyone with a green light. But if you turn right it’s like merging.
I don’t see it that way: when you’re merging you’re going in the same direction of the traffic you’re trying to merge into. At a traffic -light-controlled intersection most of the time you’re perpendicular or at an uncomfortable angle.
Then instead think about it like a stop sign at a T intersection. If you’re turning left, you have to yield for both lanes. But if you’re turning right, you only yield for one.
Other things they need to ban in driving:
Shitheads who refuse to use turn signals. Not shoulder checking. Not Leaving a gap. leaving your high beams on. Not Getting to the side for emergency vehicles. Doing multiple lane changes all at once.
These are already not legal but too many drivers do this shit. No one is reinforcing it.
Looking for excuses to Turn off your brain just cuz your foot is on the gas pedal should be when you have your licence taken away.
I was recently proposing regular drivers re-tests as a solution.
My teen has already developed some bad driving habits, like we all do, and is focused on not doing them during his upcoming driving test. For example, what if he fails for driving a little too fast?
Similarly, maybe if people had to think about their bad driving habits and risked losing their license if they slipped back into them, maybe it would help reinforce safer havits
The idea someone gets lisenced once and never retests for decades is absurd. Road rules, car technology, bad habits, and health issues all may change drastically over that time period. Regular retesting would be expensive but should be done. Make the drivers pay for it and use it to reduce the subsidizing of roads.
Where I am in the US, there’s no longer Drivers’ Ed. class in public schools, and DMV road tests are so far behind that you have to schedule your test appointment two years in advance.
Everyone is blaming older people, yet as I’ve seen older people approach the point where they should no longer drive, they limit themselves before anyone else does. That older neighbor driving to church once a week may be slow but they’ll probably be ok.
Meanwhile, it’s the people who have no physical/mental impairment who blow through stop signs and rights on red, who speed excessively, who drive drunk, who text and drive, who drive trucks bigger than they can keep in the lane, who can’t park between the lines, who rage drive ……. There are a lot of dangerous drivers who have nothing to do with being elderly, and many of these behaviors are more likely to cause injury/death
The highest group for liability are actually teenage boys
The risk of motor vehicle crashes is higher among teens ages 16–19 than among any other age group.
It’s so much so that insurance companies know to charge the highest risk group statistically
Women tend to pay less for car insurance than men. And it should come as no surprise that young drivers pay the most. Age correlates with driving experience and the risk of getting into a car accident.
If anything, speaking statistically, people are probably the least accident prone in their 50s-60s if they were good drivers all their life.
The high car insurance rates that young drivers pay start to go down at age 25. You’ll get the best rates in your 50s and early 60s
What stopped me from driving too fast, when I developed that habit, was the realization that my eyes and brain can’t process fast enough to prevent the worst possible scenario. A child runs out from between two parked cars? The 10 miles an hour between 25 and 35 makes all the difference.
This just makes me sad that the police won’t do what we actually want them to do.
I think the car has got so common and roads so vast that it is nearly impossible for the existing police service to effectively police the roadways causing a focus on the most extreme violations.
I passed a cop doing radar in a school zone the other day, average speed was 15 over and they didnt pull anyone. They probably still handed out several tickets for 20+ over in that zone but they couldnt ticket 80% of the drivers on the route as it was too busy.
Shoulder checking isn’t even necessary. People just don’t set their side mirrors correctly. If you can see your own car in your side mirrors, they’re incorrect. Or I guess I should say inefficient for what they are trying to accomplish.
Setting those properly would do a lot of people a lot of good.
Edit: I should clarify, I’m assuming shoulder checking meaning looking back, beyond 90 degrees to look backwards. Most people do this to check the “blindspot”, but this basically doesn’t exist if mirrors are correctly set. You still need to check the immediate sides of the car.
Blind spot is in all cars back passenger side window. It’s so well known that it is taught to avoid that spot while riding a motorbike. Refusing it exists makes you all that more dangerous behind a murder machine.
With properly adjusted mirrors to create a continuous field of view, motorcycles are visible. Car has “blind spot” detection but is completely useless. The vehicle it claims is out of my view is in fact. Your diagram is actually incorrect as well. The passenger side mirror is angled too far inward. It’s a pretty poor diagram because I certainly don’t have any issue seeing motorcycles no matter where they are.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15131074/how-to-adjust-your-mirrors-to-avoid-blind-spots/
I absolutely do not understand that diagram at all… How can you have a blind zone where you can literally turn your head 90 degrees and see?
Motorcycles are a bit different, in that I’m always extra careful if I see them around since they are small. I can’t speak for all cars, but in both of the ones we have, I can see a car smoothly exit my rear view mirror into my Sideview mirror with a bit of overlap and then as it is exiting the side mirror I can see it with my eyes and my head turned, with a bit of overlap. There’s literally no place to hide.
Also your comment is pretty rude, painting me like I’m some invincible road warrior who just merges with no precautions because I’m so confident that my mirrors are right that I merge hard enough to kill someone. I still signal, wait several seconds, merge slowly, and remain aware. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.
The blindspot absolutely exists with mirrors. It’s just bigger or smaller depending on vehicle size.
I don’t know what to tell you. In my car I can see a motorcycle that approaches and passes from the rear view, then the rear and side mirrors, then the side mirror, then the side mirror and out my window, then out my window as they pass. I literally never lose them for a moment between these 3 visibility areas.
I drive a pretty sensible car, so I can imagine this is more of an issue with large trucks, but I simply do not have an area that I am completely blind to.
I bike whenever possible so I drive too, so I’ve seen both sides of this coin.
- Too many rubbish motorists get impatient while driving. Apparently waiting ten seconds is too big an ask for them. I’ve stopped at intersections waiting to turn right and idiots behind me honk because they didn’t see the “NO TURN ON RED” sign.
- There is an intersection where there are two roads crossing at right angles—an ordinary intersection, but one of the roads leading into it has a steep slope, so when I go down that slope on a bike to catch a green light, I end up going pretty fast. The problem is that motor traffic turning right often fails to give way to me (or others) in the bike lane going straight forward. This leads to an unusually high number of collisions and near-collisions, luckily none leading to serious injury—yet. This is in a college campus so motor traffic is slow.
In my city there is a new light rail/tram line that, unlike all the previous lines, doesn’t have arms at any of the level crossings. So right turns on red have been disallowed along the line so drivers don’t unwittingly turn in front of a train.
Turns out drivers tend to have poor situational awareness and will ignore rules that seem mildly inconvenient. The number of cars that have turned directly into the side of a train is both hysterical and alarming.
So yeah, it would be much safer if we disallowed rights on red as a general rule, and had specific exceptions in places where an unaware or impatient driver won’t be putting anyone’s life at risk.
People don’t pay attention at crossings where you’re not allowed to make a right on red, either. The problem isn’t the rule; it’s people not actually looking where they are moving.
Drivers don’t even stop until they’ve completely crossed the crosswalk. Banning right on red only works if steel barriers emerge from the ground to protect crossers because that will actually make cars stop at the stop line.
I’m going to put some of the blame on whatever department it is that handles the municipal gardening. The highway department designs and builds an intersection, then in comes the state HOA who says “Big spherical bush right here at the apex of the corner. S’purty.” “But now driver’s can’t see oncoming traffi-” “I SAID S’PURTY!!!1!”
Pedestrian scramble is probably more appropriate than banning right on red, and is proven to greatly reduce accidents. No need to have cars sitting idling longer than needed and adding to congestion. Ive also worked in a downtown area where pedestrian traffic could get so heavy cars couldn’t turn right on green.
Dedicated cycle for pedestrians, all way crossing so they can cross diagonally too. It separates cars and pedestrians completely.
How can you do that without banning right on red? The problem is cars never stop, regardless of walk signals.
I’ve seen that in a few places, and it works where
- You ban right on red (one of the places I’ve seen it work is in Cambridge, MA, which bans right on red at many major intersections and is considering it city-wide)
- Sufficient number of pedestrians to make cars stop. You just don’t be the first person to step off the curb, and apparently only go out at busy times
There’s a famous intersection in Tokyo that does shows this. I wouldn’t be surprised you haven’t seen this in some form or another.
I’ve been there! Shibuya Crossing. It was pretty cool to saunter across with hundreds of other people under the glow of the giant screens. We probably went back and forth three times, hehe. You can see the Hachikō (Akita famous for loyalty to his late owner) statue as well!
