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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.
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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.
Well, people are arguing cases for different countries in the same thread.
Man, I dont even mean different legal situations. So many people in here dont get what “right on red” means in a physical, moving sense.
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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
It costs nothing to make people wait for a green.
You just listed the cost. Time. Another is reduced thouroughput/increased traffic.
Dude. Fucking context:
saving money for towns who don’t want to invest in more complicated traffic lights
It’ll cost them the election, that’s what
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.
It’s even worse in some places like Texas where there is a right turn arrow but it’s not illegal to make a right on red either.
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.
It is still relatively new, but should be more widely adopted.
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.
In the Netherlands it’s pretty simple: if the cars have a red light bikes and/or pedestrians have a green light. Turning right on red would be insanely dangerous.
It’s a good thing we have roundabouts whenever possible.
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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.
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.
So you’re saying it yourself: it’s not like merging. Moreover, at T-intersections there might be some crosswalk, so it’s not really true that you yield for one.
lol I’ve done it again. This was supposed to be a pissed off argument the whole time and I didn’t know. I thought you were actually curious about how it works in other countries so I’ll stop now.
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
Normally blinking yellow just means “traffic light disabled, treat this as a normal intersection”
Turns are regulated by traffic lights with arrows, that’s it. Although nowadays they try to replace as many traffic lights as possible with roundabouts.
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.
Yes. Yellow blinking light (in Portugal) means you can advance with caution. If you kill someone, its your responsibility.
Edit: usually its on zones with low pedestrian traffic. On more busy zones its red/green to turn as normal
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.
I’m guessing a major metro area? If you have a friend or relative that will drive you to and from the test, you may find that calling around to the various close by counties can get you tested much faster.
There will be for profit drives ed schools in your area, unless you live in AK, I don’t know what those run since I took it in school, but the racing licence schools are several thousand dollars, and worth every penny.
Every renewal should be a retest with increasing frequency after 55.
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
I’m not blaming older people, I blame drivers in general. As a pedestrian, I take bad drivers very seriously, but I also recent moved away from a town that had a large population of elderly people who drove and there would be multiple accidents a month caused by elderly drivers as well. Bad drivers are bad drivers, but age only makes it worse.
Except the age group you are picking are actually the safest speaking on statistics. They are currently likely far more safer than the younger drivers that can’t put away their fucking phone.
I am also a believer in zero tolerance driving policies because of those drivers, and don’t believe anyone under the age of 21 should be driving, but people usually think that’s too extreme.
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
Funny, while I was in high school guys probably did have more fender benders but girls were the ones destroying cars and getting themselves killed. Of the four vehicle-related fatalities while I was in high school, three were girls at the wheel, one was one of their passengers.
And I’ve experienced the younger male gender to be more severe because they were more risk taking, go higher speeds and take out more vehicles than just themselves. Women tend to make mistakes and have less fatalities overall as they go slower and doesn’t involve another vehicle. And I’ve experienced this in more than one country. And more than one highschool. Hence why insurance companies don’t take your singular anecdote alone to set their standards. They’d lose money.
Thanks to cell phones and distracted driving, those numbers are steadily equalizing, making all teens more dangerous and expensive to insure.
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.
If they’re illegal aren’t they already banned? I don’t understand. Enforcement is a completely different argument.
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/
It seems you and I are alone in this thread. I like how you said a continuous field of view, that’s exactly what it is. The over the shoulder check is unesscessarily dangerous, and leaves you bet susceptible to rear ending people.
For most people, you shouldn’t see your own car in your side mirrors.
Idk why people have a hard time grasping it. Not one bit of my car is visible in the door mirrors. The issue comes down to who educates drivers these days. An independent training program for new drivers is going to be much more thorough. The local DMV isn’t gonna care too much. People have this obsession where the need to so what’s directly behind them with all three mirrors, when that’s not what all three are for.
From what I’ve seen, people are saying the blind spot is anything that’s not in your mirrors. As in your “blind spot” is directly to your left or right. Anything that requires turning your head at all.
Which is fine… But I thought the blind spot referred specifically to the area back left or back right of the driver, where most people do a full turnaround to check those spots. That specific action can be eliminated through proper mirror adjustment. That’s the only point I was trying to make but damn people got spicy about it.
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.
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.
Literally what mirrors are for when they are correctly adjusted.
I’m guessing they call it something different where you live, but in America “blind spot” refers to the area you can’t see in your mirrors, and must turn your head to see. It’s literally what you describe as you talk about a car passing in your second paragraph. “Checking your blind spot” refers to the process of physically turning your head to check and making sure the lane change/turn is safe to do.
The reason he painted you as an invincible road warrior bent on killing pedestrians is because you denied the existence of one of the biggest causes of car-on-non-car incidents: failure to check blind spots. Which, prior to this comment, you definitely sounded like, and I think you’ll agree if you reread your comment with the new context of what Americans call “blind spots”.
I am American, but I’m trying to get to where the disconnect is.
What I’ve usually heard referred to as the blind spot is diagonally back, sort of looking out of the back seat windows on either side.
I’ve driven in a lot of cars where they have their mirrors set up incorrectly, and yes you have to turn all the way around to see that spot.
I’m saying in my cars, with a proper setup, you don’t need to turn back that far. You only need to check out your own window, which hardly requires much of a head move.
Turning around and checking backwards takes your eyes completely off the road, and is quite dangerous.
This YouTube video explains it quickly in just 60 seconds: https://youtu.be/tpFXTvmToiU?si=n35tVyuDELaZ3lau
I tell people this IRL and get the same reaction. But if you use this setup, you have to be basically negligent to not see someone in your mirrors.
We’re saying “you need to check your blind spot when driving” and you’re saying “blind spots don’t exist, but also you can almost completely eliminate blind spots by mirror position, but also I still check blind spots”.
The disconnect is that you’ve arbitrarily defined “blind spot” incorrectly, and refuse to acknowledge that “the bit of road not shown in rear view mirrors that is only visible by physically turning your head” is a blind spot. No amount of mirror adjusting is going to be able to fully replace checking a blind spot. Even using the method of the video you linked, seeing cars 2 lanes over merging in is basically impossible.
Blind spots are real. Mirrors, by definition, can’t show you everything in your blind spot. If you don’t check your blind spots, you could be responsible for someone’s death.
I feel like you’re being the thing you’re accusing me of. Don’t think we’re going to get anywhere, I have nothing new to say. I think a reasonable person can decipher my point of view pretty easily.
I’m just gonna respectfully back out at this point.
The diagram is for driving on the left side of the road. Flip it around for the way we drive in the US. Car too. They labeled the right side of the car the driver’s side, and the left side of the car the passenger’s side. It also assumes people don’t use their passenger’s side mirrors. For safety’s sake, I can understand that, as enough people don’t use that mirror that it’s safer to assume no one does.
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.
Iy tends to be more of an issue with some modern muscle cars, and cars which have larger back seats like your modern SUVs or crossovers, because the space between the visibility of the mirror and the visibility of your side window is much larger, and tends to be more exaggerated on the right hand side of the car, if you’re LHD. You know, as compared to a hatchback.
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.
Almost like bikes and cars should not be forced to share the same infrastructure.
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!”
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Banning right-on-red gets us another step closer to dethroning cars as default transportation.
We added bike lanes here and wherever the lanes are we added no rights on red. There’s a light for the bike lane, and prominent no right on red signs.
People still do it.
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How have I never read “colonic” when seeing their name before. That ball instead of the O must’ve thrown me off.
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.
What’s pedestrian scramble?
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
The problem is cars never stop
I believe you that you experience this but it’s simply not the case nation wide. I grew up without a car and walked/bussed for my entire 20s. Never had an issue, though I do make sure Imnsituationally aware no matter who has the right away.
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!
Some college campuses in the US do it, too. Ball State in Muncie, IN, for instance.
Meh, shits actually quite rare. https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/outreach/traftech/1995/tt086.htm
When folks are talking to you in percentages and avoid absolutes you can assume they are massaging the message to be more palatable to the intended audience.
Hate to break it to you but that link is talking in percentages. The only absolute number the give is number of fatalities, everything else is a percentage. Specifically, it claims that because turning right on red represents a small % of overall injuries from all traffic it’s not unsafe. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s literally the conclusion they give.
In conclusion, there are a relatively small number of deaths and injuries each year caused by right-turn-on-red crashes. These represent a very small percentage of all crashes, deaths, and injuries. Because the number of crashes due to right-turn-on-red is small, the impact on traffic safety, therefore, has also been small. Insufficient data exist to analyze left turn on red.
A bullet to the arm is safer than a bullet to the head but that doesn’t make it safe.
Approximately 84 fatal crashes occurred per year during the 1982-1992 time period involving a right-turning vehicle at an intersection where RTOR is permitted. During this same time period there were 485,104 fatalities.
Thus, less than 0.2 percent of all fatalities involved a right-turning vehicle maneuver at an intersection where RTOR is permitted. FARS, however, does not discern whether the traffic signal was red. Therefore, the actual number of fatal RTOR crashes is somewhere between zero and 84 and may be closer to zero than 84.
They literally use numbers in their report.
That data source does not include accidents that are not fatal. Do those not matter? The report also clearly identifies limitations of both data sources they use: what I read from that is we don’t have sufficient data
You people won’t stop until folks are living in a bubble under gun point. There is always another low value crusade that most people don’t want to hear about just shoved in their faces.
Compelling argument. Counter-point: what the fuck are you talking about and how does it relate to people’s right not to be run over in the street?
If you drive a car, there’s no issue. Since it’s only pedestrians and cyclists getting hurt, the real solution here is simple: they should drive a car. This woke culture is all worked up about keeping their organs safe, because heaven forbid your skull gets cracked or shaken about and you end up with a little bit of permanent brain damage! Here’s an idea: if you don’t want a boo-boo in your head, try protecting yourself from two-ton hunks of rolling steel by moving around in one yourself!
Besides, on the grand scale of the inexcusably high number of automobile related deaths in the US, it’s only a relatively small number of people getting hurt or dying in right-on-red accidents. After all, if people aren’t sufficiently getting maimed, this is really not an issue worth discussing. Let’s see these numbers go up first to an arbitrary threshold before having a constructive conversation about actionable ways that the US can take from developed countries where this problem doesn’t exist in the first place.
Now we agree that the current status quo doesn’t need to be changed, let’s move on to debate unrelated challenges our society faces, like figuring out why American cities are so unappealing and what some significant causes of climate change are.
I guess it wasn’t abundantly obvious that this is written tongue in cheek.
it is hard to rely on comedic appeal, for a somewhat random and unknown audience, to make up for a kind of sarcastic and mean set of writings, even if you’rr not being “serious”.
but, we’re also just getting some poe’d law in there. I think you’d get the point across better if, say, instead of just reccomending that everyone drives, you reccomended that everyone drove as large a car as possible in order to “beat everyone else” in a crash. even that might not be enough, though, I’ve definitely seen people who actually believe that.
I didn’t expect anybody to believe that somebody would advocate in earnest that a bit of permanent brain damage isn’t a big deal, but I guess there are such idiots. It’s interesting to see that formulating the dumbest possible position is indiscernible from one side of a legitimate debate on the topic of road safety.
Counter point to your counter point, bikes kill pedestrians as well. You going to ban those?
bikes kill pedestrians
Exceedingly rarely, almost to the point of not happening. You know this is a braindead argument.
ThatsThePoint.jpg.
Just like cars killing people on right hand reds. It’s a very low occurring incident.
False. In my city right on red kills people every year, but there has only been one bike that killed a pedestrian in 40 years and even that seemed like a weird fluke if you read about it
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We should advocate for having dedicated biking lanes to reduce these kinds of accidents, and redesign intersections to create a buffer space between pedestrian and bicycle crossing areas.
110% agree.
While fatalities are rare to the point of non-existence, it’s certainly a fair concern that bicyclists have too much difference in speed and maneuverability from pedestrians, risking too many accidents/injuries. That’s why we separate them: bicycling is not allowed on sidewalks
Accidents are rare, sure, and fatalities are rare because the relatively low speed impact. We can nevertheless aspire to create more inclusive infrastructure where pedestrians and cyclists can feel a sense of belonging. The car-centric roads we have in the US today could be better for everyone.
And banning right in red ain’t it. It’ll be ineffective, piss off drivers, and have little to no meaningful effect. If you want to blow political capital in this worthless shit more power to us but I’ll prefer a pragmatic approach that has a chance of being effective.
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Yes. Guess what, you have to live with those people and you have to convince them to vote on your policies.
If you’re going to sit there nagging them over stupid rare occurrence shit and piss them off you don’t get your policies. So go ahead and waste political capital pissing off voters with inconsequential shit that pisses them off.
Pragmatic politics is dead replaced by whiney absolutism.
Edit: the best part is even if you go ahead and get to piss everyone off is it’ll never ever be enforced except in certain high traffic intersections.
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You talk about being pissed off and having others cater to your fee fees and then call out others for whining and having entitled behavior ….mmmk. The hypocrisy is rather thick in here today.
I guess you don’t know what political capital is and how it relates 🤷♂️
As stated before. Pragmatic politics and policy making is dead.
Whine some more and act entitled. That’s gonna make you look so much better while you mow down pedestrians
You missed the salient point in your knee jerk reaction about ‘carbrain feels’
if you want to spend political capital Is this fight worth it more than getting cycle lanes or pedestrian zones?
Or phrased differently, unless you’re the road dictator who defines policy in a vacuum, you will have to get buy-in or agreement from the primary roads users - drivers. Which will involve compromise on your goals.
Right on red does provide (limited) ecological and congestion benefit by limiting idling at otherwise clear intersections. Inattentive drivers are not a new problem, but I would much rather have cycle lanes physically segregated from vehicles as a priority for road reform
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Ahhhh. You didn’t miss the point about ‘an okay compromise today, instead of utopia never’ you willingly ignored it
It’s incredibly ableist and ageist to demean drivers as a whole. Public transport is not a 100% coverage map, let alone timetables. Telling a wheelchair user/someone living with cerebral palsy/etc to move themselves three km start-and-finish to a bus stop to do their bi-weekly shopping is not a solution. Get real, or everyone else will see you for an extremist and ignore you.
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If making people feel safer walking and biking in cities = “worthless shit” to you then why are you even here? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been honked at or yelled at or nearly run over while walking or on my bike by drivers who refuse to stop at red lights at all because of the right on red rule.
Cars don’t belong in cities at all, with the possible exception of delivery/commercial vehicles and vehicles for disabled people. Banning right on red is just one part of a multi-pronged approach to get us there, together with better bicycle infrastructure and public transit, etc.
I think the general point people are making to you is that, in many municipalities where right on red would be bad, there are enough voters in the pedestrian base alone that nobody has to “appeal to drivers” in order to win a majority. The issue itself has validity on the basis that the health of the pedestrians should be a higher priority than the feeling that drivers are being impacted negatively by not being able to perform this maneuver. You could maybe make a counterargument comprised of economic impacts, as a couple people have tried to do, or a counterargument about how it saves emissions, but I’m sort of inclined to think that caving and giving it over to cars is sort of an approach that has diminishing returns in both of those directions, compared to the alternative.
You absolutely do not have numbers and do need to consider what hills to die on. Otherwise you’d have basic crap like bike infrastructure in those cities.
Ehh, lot of “those cities” are getting better, if you wanna get more specific as to which one, you know, less general terms, we might get into it and how there are different, you know, ruling party apparatuses that people have to maneuver around and population demographics, I dunno. Mistakes into miracles of covid was that a lot of streets could get shut down and turned into temporary pedestrian streets for limited run studies, or for some amount of days of the week or what have you, so that’s kind of shown people what’s possible.
A lot of it is also that people who live within city limits and benefit from public services/would benefit from stuff like this kind of lack political will. The drive among most urbanists is less to compromise with drivers and is more to educate/appeal to the population who lives in these cities, is what I’m saying. Which, you know, it’s a safer strategy, those are easier people to convince, you’re having to compromise less on goals. I’d generally agree that maybe things like larger traffic engineering standards in these cities need to change, because standard practice is what tends to shape the built environment rather than one-off projects or even kind of broad legislation like banning right on red, but you’re seeing those happen rather than changing standards becaude one of those tends to be much easier.
Yes. Getting better. Because, and this will shock you, local politicians and people voting for them.
yeah that’s what I said
Being pissed is the wrong framing of the issue. There’s a legitimate issues with gimping our infrastructure. Nobody would die if we all drove 5mph, but the personal and economic losses to millions of people would be catestrophic.
piss off drivers
you need to have your licence taken and put into anger management. That is not how you formulate laws and it should never be the motivation. Own your own fee-fees.
Being pissed off at stupid policy has ZERO relevance at anger management. Try to stay on topic next time.
Fatalities are one thing to consider. Another is injuries that can range from minor to life changing.
I don’t know the stats on this but pedestrian injuries would be something for policy makers to consider as well.
And in general:
- If deaths are up it’s safe to assume injuries are up as well
- Good policy making also involves preventing problems, and educating people on the issue. If 0.2% of deaths is acceptable and trending up at what point do we take action? 0.5%? 1%? 5%?
I don’t think that the US even tracks injuries at least I can’t find anything from a cursory search. But according to Vancouver RTOR is 13% of all deaths and serious injuries. https://viewpointvancouver.ca/2022/08/23/rethinking-the-right-turn-on-red/
Ninety-three percent of RTOR pedestrian or bicyclist crashes resulted in injury.
So, one of the data sources they use is for fatal injuries only and it appears that right turn on red accidents are not usually fatal. Ok, but look at that injury rate; injuries that are not fatal but could still be life-changing.
That article also talks about the limitations of the second data source they use
My overall reaction to that article is not “meh, no big deal”, but “crap, we should have better data on this”. Anecdotally, I’ve seen much worse driving behavior since COViD, where it’s becoming all too common for cars to not even slow down for right on red, and people here online are trying to defend that you don’t even need to stop despite that being clearly stated in the law. I do have a nice walkable downtown, but walking it has been getting more dangerous in recent years: if you hit my kid because you didn’t feel like stopping, it won’t be at all comforting for you to say “meh, it’s not a fatality”
What’s the fatality rate for right-on-green? That scenario always seems more dangerous to me than right-on-red unless you have a light where pedestrians get a cycle to themselves. You have the same danger with not seeing a pedestrian, but now you aren’t even supposed to stop first, just make the check and decision while moving.
At least in the UK, the pedestrian/cyclist green light turns green before the motor’s. So by the time the cars reach the crossroad, there’s already a stream of pedestrians to prevent the cars to go. So they are forced to wait until that stream is over.
That being said, if you’re not within the first stream, it’s still pretty dangerous.
There are two pedestrian crosswalks out of dozens in the town I live in that work this way. Confuses the crap out of the pedestrians and the drivers, as they aren’t expecting it to work that way.
All the other intersections are timed so drivers and pedestrians go at the same time. If we switched all the intersections to allow pedestrians to go first, I think that would be safer. Getting city council to do anything is another issue.
In the UK pedestrians will never have a green light while cars have a green light and the timings wait until pedestrians will have finished crossing before allowing cars. There might be some slow walkers or people who crossed without green (it’s dangerous but not illegal) but everything is done to ensure neither pedestrians nor cars are told to go while the other isn’t told to stop.
I have a question about these. Where I live there’s typically a green light for pedestrians, red for cars at the start of the cycle. Then it switches to green for cars, flashing for pedestrians, which means that cars have to give way, pedestrians may finish crossing, but no pedestrians may start crossing.
I am a fast walker, in a hurry, confident at dodging cars, and this is a slow intersection. I arrive at the crosswalk when the pedestrian light is flashing but cross anyway, I know I have plenty of time. Turning car honks on having to give way to me.
Which rule takes priority? I think that even though I’m technically breaking the rules, the car should still have to follow the rules and give way to pedestrians.
On a green light, pedestrians are not expecting the car to stop so would be foolish to walk in front of it until it does.
Bicyclists are another story. As a driver I wouldn’t turn across another car since I won’t be turning across one. However I will be turning across a bike lane so could I miss one? It does seem like a gap in practice with an increased risk
Pedestrians very often get the green walk sign at the same time as cars in the same direction get the green straight ahead sign that implicitly allows right turns as well. In that scenario, the cars are often located just behind the pedestrian’s peripheral vision, and the cars are looking up and ahead at the light (or maybe to their left if they were previously hoping to execute a right on red and waiting for a gap in traffic), so it becomes basically exactly what you were talking about with bikes. Cars turning across a “lane” of pedestrian traffic with neither party having good visibility of the other. There are a couple of solutions/mitigations in use for this problem, dedicated “all-red” pedestrian cycles, protected intersections that move vulnerable road users further forward to be more visible, and advanced pedestrian greens that make cars wait until pedestrians are already in the intersection and more visible before getting the go ahead. Or, if your city is like mine and car-centric, they might stick up a yellow sign on the opposite light post across the stroad that says “pedestrians yield to turning vehicles” in text that is just barely legible from across the street at an intersection that has audible wait and walk indicators for blind people who definitely can’t read that sign and will thus be endangered for not getting the memo (not that car drivers are reading it either, so several considerate drivers will wave the pedestrians forward, further confusing the right of way situation). Fun!
In short, every turn you make as a driver should be accompanied by a check for vulnerable road users like cyclists and pedestrians because our infrastructure will not necessarily put them in a place that is easily visible to you
In the UK when there’s a green man (pedestrian crossing signal) it means that all traffic is stopped, and (though not officially recommended) you could cross diagonally and it’ll be fine. In the US and some other countries, it doesn’t seem to have that meaning, so other traffic may still have a green light or be allowed to pass a red light where pedestrians are being told it’s safe to cross.
Pedestrians very often get the green walk sign at the same time as cars in the same direction get the green straight ahead sign that implicitly allows right turns as well. In that scenario, the cars are often located just behind the pedestrian’s peripheral vision, and the cars are looking up and ahead at the light
It seems to me that that’s the wrong way round, if there’s no pedestrian crossing it’s safer to cross when the traffic is moving from the left-right of you than in front and behind you.
My suggestion is that pedestrian crossing signals should stop all car traffic in the junction and if no signal exists the guidance should be to cross where the traffic is visible (left and right) not when it comes from behind you.
Obviously it depends on the junction, but for anyone who’s not familiar with UK crossings here’s a touch more context:
It’s not necessarily all traffic at that entire junction, just traffic going across that specific crossing point that’s guaranteed to be stopped. So if there would be the possibility for a turn onto a road that has a green pedestrian light either all the traffic going that way would be on a red light, or there would be a filter light where only the relevant traffic (straight or a turn) would be on red.
Pedestrians have the right of way and get the walk signal on the green, is it really that foolish? Also children, elderly, visually/auditory impaired people all also cross the street. It is 100% the responsibility of the driver to ensure the intersection is clear before traveling through it, this includes clear of pedestrians.
All turns should be taught and enforced to be yields and performed at extremely low speeds.
Man, this one is tough. I enjoy not having to wait, but I’ve experienced this cognitive overload both as a driver getting surprised then aborting my turn abruptly and as a pedestrian when the driver is too busy watching traffic to look at me, making me nervous about stepping into the crosswalk.
I’m not surprised to read this rule causes accidents.
Considering my sister just got hit because of a right on red while she was crossing an intersection… yeah its just a mess.
She’s okay ish. Very bruised. Lucky nothing else happened.
Dude hit and ran.
Very frustrating.
Maybe a good starting point in the US would be to ban it in cities or ban it anywhere there’s a side walk / bike lane? That way you might avoid a lot of the hicks who would inevideably be super against this.
Those hicks are the ones that won’t pay attention to if there’s a crosswalk.
They are the problem.
Fuck catering to them
“The driver inches into the crosswalk, watching the oncoming traffic to his left and waiting for a gap to appear. He finally spots one and accelerates into the turn”
Um, what? There are cars zooming across the crosswalk, which definitely wouldn’t have a crossing signal. In this imaginary scenario, a pedestrian is trying to sprint across an intersection against a crossing signal.
There are enough horrific traffic situations created by cars and urban congestion, do we really need to make up a stupid and unlikely one where the pedestrian is the idiot? If anything, this article should be against right on green. Good luck with that.
I think the article means that a pedestrian is trying to cross in front of the turning car where the pedestrian does have right of way, so perpendicular to the turning car and parallel with the traffic which has the green light and walk signal.
Why would there be a “gap” in that case? It’s just a poor example.
Oh my god. What a waste of time it was berating you. Might as well try to educate a rock.
I think you need to read the example again, slowly
Sweet mercy, bless your hearts. This example is clear and you both seem to be the problem.
The car it’s talking about is at a red light, intending to turn right while there is active vehicle traffic proceeding through (the lanes with the green light). There are cross walks at this intersection, as there typically are in non-rural intersections. So the car (or truck, no judgement), which is facing a red light and intending on turning right before their light goes green, inches forward entering the crosswalk that is facing the green lights. They do this so the driver can watch the oncoming traffic proceeding through the green light. They are watching for a gap in that traffic in which they can slip into, during their intended right turn. This brings the car through 2 of the 4 crosswalks. 1 where a would pedestrian has the right of way, the other does not. The primary hazard here is that this driver, the one at the red light and wanting to turn right, is likely not paying any attention to anything on the right. Which could have a pedestrian entering the crosswalk, as is their right of way, and increases the likelihood of an accident where the car is at fault. A concern of this behaviour is the driver blocking access to the crosswalk which, where pedestrians have right of way. This is inconvenient to the pedestrian and can again put them into a hazardous situation of forcing them closer to oncoming traffic to walk around the offending car.
If that hasn’t cleared it up for you and you drive a vehicle, please stop driving.
I refuse to read your post. It’s too long. And I’m going to keep driving my F350 wherever I damn well please, because this is America. Don’t let the American flags slap your snowflake face and make you cry as I go by.
Don’t mind the eagles, they’re mine, I use them to hunt immigrants with my tank, which is my second car, and is a god-given right protected by the constitution. If it wasn’t for the founding fathers protecting our right to drive tanks, the nazis would have won 'nam.
You sheeple disgust me.
Too long, didn’t read.
Opened aggressive, going to send my army of beavers and moose. Good luck.
====== ==== P CP is pedestrian, C is car. Equal signs are cars going right.
Pedestrian is crossing the road going left. Pedestrian has a green light/cross walk. The car C isn’t looking at P; the car C is looking at the gap in the equal signs.
So a pedestrian walks in front of a car that has pulled into a crosswalk while the driver is looking the other way? And then after all of these specific conditions are met, a pedestrian is hit by a car that is starting from a dead stop and, given the width of a crosswalk (which it’s already pulled into), travels three feet before impact?
My point is given how many actually dangerous traffic conditions that exist that inhibit walkability, this statistically unlikely (see the report to congress on “RoR” accident frequency below) and extremely specific scenario seems like a stupid one to focus on.
I’m surprised you’re surprised that people are talking about it. I have personally experienced this multiple times as a kid, and judging from the downvote ratios going on, it seems like other people have had similar experiences.
Tl;dr it’s a very common occurrence
My point, which I will repeat one more time, is that there are significantly more dangerous and more commonly occurring issues created by the interface between pedestrian and car infrastructure in urban environments.
Our current conversation is about a relatively rare and less pressing concern, and our attention would be better spent addressing more dangerous scenarios, of which there are many, and about which there will be less resistance.
Dude. It fucking happens. People die. It’s not hard to find out. Don’t rely on your own thought experiments when there is actual fucking data at your fingertips.
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The problem is that it’s too easy to get a driver’s licence and retain it without updating or testing in any way. Make it more difficult for terrible drivers who are inattentive or unable, to get a licence in the first place. In the 90’s and 00’s I worked as a Paramedic in a number of major cities and it was terrible then. Now it’s even worse. There are so many distractions and everything moves even faster. Some people just can’t manage it and should not drive.
I spent a couple years as a driving instructor and licensing examiner. It is disturbing how hamstrung I was on failing people. And that many people openly talked about losing good habits/forgetting important info now that they don’t have to test any more is an extra layer of terrifying. Mandatory retesting every 3-5 years, more if someone has a lot of infraction/collisions, and yearly after 65.
It was banned in Montreal and it should be banned everywhere, yes.
I see people get close calls every week in my small 20k “friendly” town. Makes me miss my city dearly.
The stop lights are so dumb, it’s just rubbing off on drivers.
