Well, I lost my right eye when I was 17. Passenger in a car accident and it was enucleated due to the extent of the damage. Brain exposed too. Took me a year to be able to play baseball at the same level as before but was driving almost immediately after recovering. Depending on your age, you have a lot of experience with stereo vision to fall back on. The brain adjusts quickly. There are many clues to depth and the best case is when the target is moving.
No Right Turn On Red signs can sometimes produce unintended results.
After our marriage, me and the missus rented our first house in St Paul on a fairly busy main road. After about 6 months, we noticed that all of a sudden, we had cars zipping down our alley. (All blocks have old fashioned alleys between the streets where the garages were located.) Couldnât figure it out for a week or so. Then, we noticed that theyâd put up a NRTOR sign at the intersestion down the street from us. I grabbed a chair and a beer one day, and watched the street. Whenever the light turned red, some drivers would hang a quick right, then go running down our alley and make their right at the next street, thus avoiding the NRTOR sign. This became a huge safety issue, as there were many small children on this block. (Including, eventually, our own.) We campaigned to get that sign taken down, but the city wouldnât budge, citing a couple of serious accidents at that intersection. I invited a city policeman who happened to be parked out front doing paperwork one day to watch. After noticing a couple of cars do it, he went back to his car for his radar gun. He timed one young gal in a Jeep CJ5 at 33 mph. You should have seen the look on her face when she spotted him. She actually locked the brakes up slowing down. She got a nice hefty speeding ticket for her trouble. The cop said heâd try and do something about it, but nothing ever happened. We eventually bought our first house in another neighborhood, and forgot about it. One day, I stopped by to visit an old neighbor, and learned that a young boy had indeed been hit by a car short-cutting down the alley. Luckily, he recovered. The family didnât just sue the driver, they sued the city, citing this as a long term problem. The ex-neighbor said that after the suit was filed, the sign came down.
A couple of years later, I read in the paper that the city had gotten into the habit of putting them up whenever neighbors near the intersection asked, and were soon all over the place. They actually took about 90% of them back down. After that, it got a lot tougher to have one put up. This was back in the mid to late eighties.
I donât know if itâs true elsewhere, but in Minnesota, if youâre at an intersection of two one-way streets, you can turn left on red as well if the directions permit.
He can wait for to turn right when the light turns green, I often do this when driving large trucks at work. Everyone is in a hurry these days, A bumper sticker would be nice, but I would put a NRA bumper sticker next to it.
I have often wanted to put a ticker on my vehicle. I am going 5mph OVER the speed Limit, Get off my a$%. I get tailgaters about 30percent of the time it seems, even when im going slightly over limit.
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I have been honked at before because I stopped for a YELLOW light. I got out of my vehicle and asked the guy if he had a problem, he said no, I told him if he ever did that again he would have a problem. He told me he didnât want any problems, I told him that I like problems, so donât push it.
Made that guy think before he honks next time at someone that decides to obey the law, at least with me.
You treat me with respect and I treat you with the utmost respect. Its that simple. Not to hard really.
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âRight onâ, red bumper sticker slogan.
Right on. dude.
âRightâ. on red bumper sticker slogan,
for our rightest friends
In regard to, âright turn on red is permitted, but not requiredâ, how about this scenario that I experienced twice this summer in the state of Connecticut:
Both times, I was stopped at a red light, in the right lane, which was marked with arrows for straight ahead traffic, as well as for right turns. There was no sign prohibiting a right turn on red, however I intended to go straight, and did not have my directional signal on, which should have been an indication that I intended to go straightâas was permitted in that lane.
ButâŠdid this stop two different CT a-holes from repeatedly blasting their horns at me because they wanted to turn right? Nope!
People talk about the drivers in NJ & NY, but I have to say that I experienced the worst, most aggressive drivers that I ever saw, in CT & MA this summer.
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@VDCdriver - how DARE you interfere with these folksâ ability to get where theyâre going as fast as possible???
JerksâŠ
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^
Yeah, I should have known better.
At least I now know to avoid CT whenever possible!
(Unlike CT, MA actually has interesting places to visit, so I canât avoid MA drivers.)
Right on, âREDâ bumper sticker slogan.
A conrade teaparty member.
âI may be slow, but Iâm ahead of youâ âŠas seen on the trailer door of my 18 wheeler!!!
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ââ next time, leave sooner ââ
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âYour lack of planning is not my emergencyâ
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Triedaq⊠That was great. I also liked the gun comment by barky dog.
In my city you are not allowed to turn right on red, but if I travel out to the suburbs it is like the wild wild westâŠanything goes. It takes a little getting used to. I try to take advantage of the right on red when it is legal. In this day and age I donât know many people that have your typical 9-5 job. We work so many hours and even on Saturdays. Then if you factor in traffic, and all of the errands you need to run when you are off it is overwhelming. So whether we are working, or trying to enjoy time with the family the feeling to rush and get to your destination compels you to honk and be impatient. Unfortunately this is a product of todayâs world.
1st-time poster here but maybe I can inject a little contrast here. (I donât know if Iâm reviving a dead thread so skip to the end for the âI want one tooâ bit)
So, I was surprised no one mentioned the actual origins of Right Turn On Red legality. This was during the oil embargoes of the late-mid 20th century. Gas prices were so high and fuel efficiency so low that simply idling waiting to turn was considered wasteful, so turning right on red was made legal. Problematically, it was never put back the way it was afterward and for a few reasons, the easiest being that people didnât want to go back to waiting at red lights. The harder reason is that no one really cared about the effects it had on other aspects of city life, namely that pedestrian fatalities are consistently higher where right turn on red is permitted at a city crosswalk (remember that the suburban boom was in full swing by then). Itâs a really bad combo of you think about it. With fat A-pillars and distracted drivers, itâs far too easy to not notice the pedestrian legally in the crosswalk. Weâve all seen it before: two lanes of traffic stopped with an empty turning lane. A pedestrian crosses from the inside (legally) just as a turning vehicle slips into the turning lane and nearly runs the (legal) pedestrian over in its haste to turn. Right turn on red screws with intersection logistics too. Take it from someone who has observed intersections extensively, removing right turn on red laws and re-banning it might seem extreme and world-ending but it would be a brilliant move on the parts of cities. Here is the other reason, slightly abstract, why allowing right turn on red is a bad idea. Out of two options on their own without considering externalities, allowing right turn on red carries more inherent risk than disallowing it due to the increase in variables. When the higher-risk option is considered the norm and the lower-risk option the outlier, people do not expect the outlier. We all know that expecting human beings to rigidly obey street signage (or even notice it) is likeâŠwell, expecting humanâs to do just that. Making people NOT expect a No Turn On Red means that theyâre more likely to not notice the sign and roll through the turn, putting pedestrians who are MUCH more likely to be aware of the sign at risk. That means more risk of lawsuit for the driver and more discouragement for pedestrians (which hurts the local economy since pedestrians and cyclists carry significantly more buying clout than drivers).
Bottom line: if someone doesnât want to turn right on red then thereâs nothing wrong about it. It doesnât make them âchickenâ or âincompetent.â Itâs not REQUIRED. It is PERMITTED. Which means if old lady Steinmetz wants to wait for the green she can wait for the green. As a guy who has commuted via car, bicycle, transit, and ride share I can definitely say that driving would actually be LESS frustrating if the USDOT completely rolled back the permissions of right turn on red.
NowâŠwhere can I get one of those stickers? I want something professional-looking but that is small enough to suit a small car!
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Two days ago I was at a stop sign with right turn signal on waiting for traffic to clear, An idiot tried to squeeze between me and the curb but there was not enough room. They laid on their horn! 5 seconds later when traffic cleared I turned right with them glued to by bumper! I signaled and moved to the left lane. The idiot stayed in the right lane and pulled along side me. They again laid on their horn while giving me the finger! What did I do wrong? There should be a bounty on them!!!
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One of my favorite bumper stickers is âKeep Honking Iâm Reloadingâ!!! Actually in my state unnecessary use of the horn in this situation can result in being charged with class A misdemeanor road rage. Not that I agree with that. Brain dead texters bother me much more than those not comfortable turning right on red. We can also turn left on red from a 2 way street onto a 1 way street if traffic is clear. I think myself and maybe 2 others in my state are aware of this. Also in the same situation after the light turns green and the left turning moron is waiting for all the oncoming traffic it is perfectly legal to carefully pass them on the right if there is room. When I do this they usually freak out blowing their horn and using various gestures. I suspect as many drivers read the driver manual as read their vehicles owner manual.
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Not sure what state you live in, but turning left on red varies from state to state and most, if not all, allow only a left turn on red from a one-way street onto another one-way street.
GeehâŠthis thread started 3 years ago.
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In the early '70âs during the âgas crisisâ Jimmy Carter ordered that federal highway funds be withheld from all states that did not change their laws to allow right turns on red after stopping unless otherwise posted. It created a lot of confusion in the beginning, and Iâms sure it created a few road rage incidents. States dealt with dangerous intersections by posting signs prohibiting right turn on red lights. In short, itâs been a law in every state in the union since the Carter presidency.
If the OP has as big a problem with it as he/she indicated, perhaps itâs time he/she gets a good physical checkup. Vision-impairing issues like cataracts or macular degeneration from glaucoma can seriously alter ones perception of whether itâs safe to turn. I can speak from experience on both issues.
Short of a medical issue, he/she should not be having that big a problem, and having one suggests that he/she is either unable to judge traffic or is simply being obstinate. Neither is safe in driving.
My pet peeve with right on red is that almost no one stops any more, they treat it like a green arrow and just wheel the corner without looking. The act like they have the reight of way and I am getting tired of having to slam on my brakes because of idiots turning in front of me when I have a green light and the right of way.
For several years, I drove either a car or a suburban in school bus service, transporting students to out of district schools. These vehicles cannot be painted school bus colors in NY State anymore because they do not meet school bus construction standards. We are not allowed to turn right on red with students on board and the school district I drove for decided we were not allowed to turn right on red even when we didnât have students on. They couldnât paint signs on telling people that we donât turn right on red because the cars were shared with driver ed.
I got honked at a lot. My usual response was a cheerful wave, but sometimes , if I didnât have students, I would stop the car, walk slowly back to them and slowly explain the situation and also tell them that turning right on red was not mandatory for anyone.
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