Honestly right on red is so stupid. So many people don’t even slow down and they just go. Sometimes I’ll be waiting to turn right at red light and some dickhead in a behemoth truck behind me will start spamming their horn like they think I have the right away and can just mow down whichever pedestrians are in the crosswalk. I bike a lot and I have narrowly avoided being hit by a car turning right on red multiple times. One time I had a car graze my back tire which was really scary but fortunately I ended up okay.
To offer a counter argument.
Right on red the concept isn’t stupid, its stupid to just sit there when there’s not a car in sight.
The drivers, shitty driver tests and 0 enforcement is all dumb.
It’s supposed to be treated like a stop sign, you stop, look, and go when safe. Not roll through at max speed.
People also don’t seem to know that a red arrow equals a no-turn on red sign.
I’ve been seeing electronic no-turn on red signs that can turn on/off with the light cycle. So if the opposite lane has the left green, the sign tells you not to turn on red. One would hope they’re integrated into the cross walks too, (not that everyone uses those either).
I think the us has the worse road tests, mine was just some suburbs with 0 merges, no highways, a couple stops signs and maybe a light. Pretty much anyone driving for a day could have passed that thing, and that’s how we end up with the bullshit like “the fast cruise lane (pass lane)” “right roll on red” “the merger has right away” “merge on highway 20miles(32kmh) slower than traffic” “blinker optional” “blinker on only when half way through turn or merge” “break before blinker” “wave of death on two lane roads” the list could go on and on…
I know I’m being pedantic but I just thought it’s interesting that you said “there’s not a car in sight” when I thought the primary concern was drivers not paying attention to pedestrians crossing the street.
However, why is it more stupid to sit there when there’s not a car on sight only when turning right but not when going straight or turning left? There’s an argument for larger roads with many lanes, sure, but isn’t it the same when it’s only 1-2 lane roads?
You are correct, I should have said “Not a car, pedestrian or other obstacle in sight”.
The problem is absolutely people not paying attention when turning; they’ll fixate on the traffic coming from the left, and the moment there’s a tiny opening they’ll floor it and ram into stopped traffic or pedestrians on the right.
I would say its equally stupid to sit there with no car in sight. I guess this most often happens at night when little traffic. There are some light that seems to have a 60sec cycle and it sucks idling there for no reason. Roundabouts help, and over the last 10? years they’ve been appearing more.
Telling people to use their judgment to decide if they can just go regardless of red is a bad idea. People barley handle the right-on-red as it is.
Everything you wrote after this sentence told me that people are stupid, not necessarily the right itself. It makes a lot of sense, I’d like to have it in the EU.
Just trying to help where I can through pedantry. Had someone this morning use “all intensive purposes” and he was amazed at how much more sense the actual phrase makes. Recontextualized things for him a bit.
The right lanes are the slow lanes - we overtake/pass on the left, and you are advised to stay out of the left lane unless you are passing. This makes sense because you need to slow down to exit the freeway, or in case of emergency, you are closer to the side of the road to be able to do so.
How else are you supposed to deal with 4-way stops? In my state it’s first arrival goes first, however if two cars arrive at the same time the car on the right proceeds first. It’s not that complicated, and I’m not sure what’s wrong with it?
And I’m not at all sure what you’re referring to regarding coming from the right? Coming from the right in relation to where?
How else are you supposed to deal with 4-way stops? In my state it’s first arrival goes first, however if two cars arrive at the same time the car on the right proceeds first.
By always respecting the second rule. There are no 4-way stops here. If an intersection does not have signs the vehicle on the right always has priority. No exceptions.
It’s not that complicated, and I’m not sure what’s wrong with it
The problem is that people have different views on who came first but there are no different views on where right is. If there are any disputes there can be no arguments on who came 20 milliseconds earlier, instead you can just look at who had the right of way.
In a four-way stop, if you arrive at the same time then the one on the right goes first and if you’re across from each other then the one going straight gets the right of way and the one turning goes after otherwise it doesn’t matter if both are going straight.
Otherwise, if you have two people arrive at a four-way stop and one is clearly there before the other then the winner gets the right of way to keep flow of traffic going rather than waiting for the other to stop and go just because they were on the right side.
We don’t have a ton of roundabouts/traffic circles here but it works the same as it would in Europe.
Doesn’t matter who got there first, person from the right gets right of way even if he came later. You approach the intersection with caution and make sure you can stop to yield should anyone come from the right.
We get circles in high population areas, but not enough, I agree
No strict right of way when coming from the right
This is actually in our traffic laws, just most are dumb enough not to be able to figure it out :)
Right on red
Varies per state. (which is also stupid) It’s like the circles, it’s a density_safety/cost thing. If you don’t have pedestrians, treating a turn with traffic as a stop sign can keep intersection costs down.
I’d also tac on abysmal public transportation, poorly maintained rail lines and horrible airport candor.
A note, not all states operate this way, but the concept of ‘right of way’ is going away. Judges do not like the idea of someone feeling privileged enough to make a situation worse. In general, they want to implement fail-safes and not fail-unsafe situations.
Edit: To add - we’ve actually had this for a while, it’s called ‘failure to yield’. The switch is actually being more driven by emergency services making things worse, which is kind of relieving given the general sentiment. Unfortunately it’s just another phrase for the same thing, semantics…but if you do go to court, you’re better off presenting who failed vs who’s entitled.
I think I have seen this and been confused by it. Does it mean that nobody should assume they have right of way? For example, having right of way isn’t necessarily an excuse for being in an accident because you didn’t give way to someone driving badly.
If a person didn’t yield at a sign saying they should, and caused an accident as a result, they are demonstrably at fault.
Pretty much, the only caveat I’d add is the assumption of ‘right of way’. You can have situations where road conditions were unusual but drivers are not certain to all the conditions. The involved parties can all assume they have the ‘right of way’, when in reality the best option would have been for everyone to yield until conditions ARE certain.
I’ll give a personal example: I once came upon an accident on a bridge, and the cop cars were already on the scene. It was night, raining hard and the cop cars were facing the oncoming lane with headlights set to high. I couldn’t see anything past the cop cars, so I slowed down from 50 to 25. As I passed, I briefly saw a shadow of a person and heard them say “SLOW DOWN”. I still have no idea how close I was to hitting them, but they must have been very close to hear them thru the rain and sirens. I should have gone much, much slower, maybe even stopped. Fortunately, nothing bad happened, but I had assumed that since the one lane was open that it was ok to use. I don’t know why the cop cars oriented themselves in a way to blind oncoming drivers, but had something happened, the fault would have ultimately been mine regardless.
Another example is parking lots, so many accidents occur at busy locations. People forget how you are not supposed to block ingress (to prevent traffic backing up into the street and making things worse) and get road rage because they can’t leave. I’ve seen people try to “squeeze in” and end up blocking an entire lot because they can’t move. One side will say “zipper” (ie: “my turn for RoW”) the other will say “right of way”, and parking lots are notorious for not having any signs.
Edit: and ofc, old ladies who think blinkers give them RoW
Edit2: an example for cops: blowing thru red lights without making sure intersections are clear. To be fair, everyone should yield to a cop car in the performance of their duties, but this doesn’t mean cop cars get a free pass for RoW and can plow thru full speed, damn the consequences. They still have to take safety of others in mind and yield if required.
Edit3: because I’ve had the discussion before. Yes, it’s semantics. RoW and FTY are the same thing. I’m only saying the phrase is being sunsetted, no Judge wants to hear someone say RoW. Some laws even use them together as “Failure to Yield Right of Way”. The goal is to prevent the mindset of entitlement, to make sure the clarity of safeguards remain in place.
Interesting and also makes me want to clarify something. “Right of way” as in “I’m allowed to do this” is not what I initially meant. The concept I’m talking about is called “Voorrang van rechts” where voorrang means right of way, but as you can see it only translates half of it. “Van rechts” means “from (the) right”. I just looked it up to get a proper full translation or equivalent, but all translations stop at “right of way”, which simply is “voorrang”. A language barrier if you will.
Grinding all traffic in all directions over multiple lanes to a stop when a school bus stops
This varies by state, but I think I most of them are setup so that you don’t have to stop if the road is divided, or if there are more than 4 lanes (so 2 lanes for each direction, plus a turn lane in the middle, you don’t have to stop). As always, check your local laws, and when in doubt, signal and stop.
Edit: to clarify, the oncoming lanes don’t stop, the lane behind and adjacent to the bus still have to stop.
There are 50 states in the USA. They generally have the same rules of the road but you are being an idiot if you think that all states have the same laws. Does any other coalition in the world work like that?
What does “strict right of way when coming from the right” mean? If it’s up for debate there’s usually either stops or yields, or road size rules (double yellow takes priority over local small roads)
When roads meet, whoever comes out of the street to your right has right of way. Signs can be put up to overrule this basic rule, for example when small side roads connect to a main road, but if for some reason no signs are posted, whoever comes out of that small road has right of way. Clear and simple.
Your traffic laws are weird.
Overtaking/passing on the right
4 way stops and whoever comes first can go
No strict right of way when coming from the right
Right on red
Grinding all traffic in all directions over multiple lanes to a stop when a school bus stops
At least the last one I can understand a little with the nearly non-existent pedestrian infrastructure.
Honestly right on red is so stupid. So many people don’t even slow down and they just go. Sometimes I’ll be waiting to turn right at red light and some dickhead in a behemoth truck behind me will start spamming their horn like they think I have the right away and can just mow down whichever pedestrians are in the crosswalk. I bike a lot and I have narrowly avoided being hit by a car turning right on red multiple times. One time I had a car graze my back tire which was really scary but fortunately I ended up okay.
To offer a counter argument. Right on red the concept isn’t stupid, its stupid to just sit there when there’s not a car in sight.
The drivers, shitty driver tests and 0 enforcement is all dumb.
It’s supposed to be treated like a stop sign, you stop, look, and go when safe. Not roll through at max speed. People also don’t seem to know that a red arrow equals a no-turn on red sign.
I’ve been seeing electronic no-turn on red signs that can turn on/off with the light cycle. So if the opposite lane has the left green, the sign tells you not to turn on red. One would hope they’re integrated into the cross walks too, (not that everyone uses those either).
I think the us has the worse road tests, mine was just some suburbs with 0 merges, no highways, a couple stops signs and maybe a light. Pretty much anyone driving for a day could have passed that thing, and that’s how we end up with the bullshit like “the fast cruise lane (pass lane)” “right roll on red” “the merger has right away” “merge on highway 20miles(32kmh) slower than traffic” “blinker optional” “blinker on only when half way through turn or merge” “break before blinker” “wave of death on two lane roads” the list could go on and on…
I know I’m being pedantic but I just thought it’s interesting that you said “there’s not a car in sight” when I thought the primary concern was drivers not paying attention to pedestrians crossing the street.
However, why is it more stupid to sit there when there’s not a car on sight only when turning right but not when going straight or turning left? There’s an argument for larger roads with many lanes, sure, but isn’t it the same when it’s only 1-2 lane roads?
You are correct, I should have said “Not a car, pedestrian or other obstacle in sight”.
The problem is absolutely people not paying attention when turning; they’ll fixate on the traffic coming from the left, and the moment there’s a tiny opening they’ll floor it and ram into stopped traffic or pedestrians on the right.
I would say its equally stupid to sit there with no car in sight. I guess this most often happens at night when little traffic. There are some light that seems to have a 60sec cycle and it sucks idling there for no reason. Roundabouts help, and over the last 10? years they’ve been appearing more.
Telling people to use their judgment to decide if they can just go regardless of red is a bad idea. People barley handle the right-on-red as it is.
Everything you wrote after this sentence told me that people are stupid, not necessarily the right itself. It makes a lot of sense, I’d like to have it in the EU.
You are correct in my opinion. I don’t like how many people assume it’s a green arrow or that you must go if able, but I wouldn’t give it up.
Maybe it was autocowreckt but the phrase is “right of way”.
You’re correct. I wrote that at around 4 am and I had a variety of other errors as well on my first draft, that one happened to slip through.
Just trying to help where I can through pedantry. Had someone this morning use “all intensive purposes” and he was amazed at how much more sense the actual phrase makes. Recontextualized things for him a bit.
Not nearly as bad as left on green BUT yielding to oncoming traffic.
I’m so confused here.
The right lanes are the slow lanes - we overtake/pass on the left, and you are advised to stay out of the left lane unless you are passing. This makes sense because you need to slow down to exit the freeway, or in case of emergency, you are closer to the side of the road to be able to do so.
How else are you supposed to deal with 4-way stops? In my state it’s first arrival goes first, however if two cars arrive at the same time the car on the right proceeds first. It’s not that complicated, and I’m not sure what’s wrong with it?
And I’m not at all sure what you’re referring to regarding coming from the right? Coming from the right in relation to where?
In the US I believed it’s legal to pass people from the right if they are driving to your left. That’s illegal here, you can only pass from the left.
It’s also illegal to hog a lane, you must always use the right most lane when it’s free, unless you’re passing.
Yeah, that’s a HUGE problem here.
By always respecting the second rule. There are no 4-way stops here. If an intersection does not have signs the vehicle on the right always has priority. No exceptions.
The problem is that people have different views on who came first but there are no different views on where right is. If there are any disputes there can be no arguments on who came 20 milliseconds earlier, instead you can just look at who had the right of way.
Uh, we do have a rule about right goes first…
In a four-way stop, if you arrive at the same time then the one on the right goes first and if you’re across from each other then the one going straight gets the right of way and the one turning goes after otherwise it doesn’t matter if both are going straight.
Otherwise, if you have two people arrive at a four-way stop and one is clearly there before the other then the winner gets the right of way to keep flow of traffic going rather than waiting for the other to stop and go just because they were on the right side.
We don’t have a ton of roundabouts/traffic circles here but it works the same as it would in Europe.
Doesn’t matter who got there first, person from the right gets right of way even if he came later. You approach the intersection with caution and make sure you can stop to yield should anyone come from the right.
You should see us a roundabout! 😉
Generally illegal, some people do it still.
We get circles in high population areas, but not enough, I agree
This is actually in our traffic laws, just most are dumb enough not to be able to figure it out :)
Varies per state. (which is also stupid) It’s like the circles, it’s a density_safety/cost thing. If you don’t have pedestrians, treating a turn with traffic as a stop sign can keep intersection costs down.
I’d also tac on abysmal public transportation, poorly maintained rail lines and horrible airport candor.
A note, not all states operate this way, but the concept of ‘right of way’ is going away. Judges do not like the idea of someone feeling privileged enough to make a situation worse. In general, they want to implement fail-safes and not fail-unsafe situations.
Edit: To add - we’ve actually had this for a while, it’s called ‘failure to yield’. The switch is actually being more driven by emergency services making things worse, which is kind of relieving given the general sentiment. Unfortunately it’s just another phrase for the same thing, semantics…but if you do go to court, you’re better off presenting who failed vs who’s entitled.
I think I have seen this and been confused by it. Does it mean that nobody should assume they have right of way? For example, having right of way isn’t necessarily an excuse for being in an accident because you didn’t give way to someone driving badly.
If a person didn’t yield at a sign saying they should, and caused an accident as a result, they are demonstrably at fault.
Pretty much, the only caveat I’d add is the assumption of ‘right of way’. You can have situations where road conditions were unusual but drivers are not certain to all the conditions. The involved parties can all assume they have the ‘right of way’, when in reality the best option would have been for everyone to yield until conditions ARE certain.
I’ll give a personal example: I once came upon an accident on a bridge, and the cop cars were already on the scene. It was night, raining hard and the cop cars were facing the oncoming lane with headlights set to high. I couldn’t see anything past the cop cars, so I slowed down from 50 to 25. As I passed, I briefly saw a shadow of a person and heard them say “SLOW DOWN”. I still have no idea how close I was to hitting them, but they must have been very close to hear them thru the rain and sirens. I should have gone much, much slower, maybe even stopped. Fortunately, nothing bad happened, but I had assumed that since the one lane was open that it was ok to use. I don’t know why the cop cars oriented themselves in a way to blind oncoming drivers, but had something happened, the fault would have ultimately been mine regardless.
Another example is parking lots, so many accidents occur at busy locations. People forget how you are not supposed to block ingress (to prevent traffic backing up into the street and making things worse) and get road rage because they can’t leave. I’ve seen people try to “squeeze in” and end up blocking an entire lot because they can’t move. One side will say “zipper” (ie: “my turn for RoW”) the other will say “right of way”, and parking lots are notorious for not having any signs.
Edit: and ofc, old ladies who think blinkers give them RoW
Edit2: an example for cops: blowing thru red lights without making sure intersections are clear. To be fair, everyone should yield to a cop car in the performance of their duties, but this doesn’t mean cop cars get a free pass for RoW and can plow thru full speed, damn the consequences. They still have to take safety of others in mind and yield if required.
Edit3: because I’ve had the discussion before. Yes, it’s semantics. RoW and FTY are the same thing. I’m only saying the phrase is being sunsetted, no Judge wants to hear someone say RoW. Some laws even use them together as “Failure to Yield Right of Way”. The goal is to prevent the mindset of entitlement, to make sure the clarity of safeguards remain in place.
Interesting and also makes me want to clarify something. “Right of way” as in “I’m allowed to do this” is not what I initially meant. The concept I’m talking about is called “Voorrang van rechts” where voorrang means right of way, but as you can see it only translates half of it. “Van rechts” means “from (the) right”. I just looked it up to get a proper full translation or equivalent, but all translations stop at “right of way”, which simply is “voorrang”. A language barrier if you will.
This varies by state, but I think I most of them are setup so that you don’t have to stop if the road is divided, or if there are more than 4 lanes (so 2 lanes for each direction, plus a turn lane in the middle, you don’t have to stop). As always, check your local laws, and when in doubt, signal and stop.
Edit: to clarify, the oncoming lanes don’t stop, the lane behind and adjacent to the bus still have to stop.
Lol sorry what? It’s even worse than I thought 😂
There are 50 states in the USA. They generally have the same rules of the road but you are being an idiot if you think that all states have the same laws. Does any other coalition in the world work like that?
No, even in Europe there are small differences in rules and signs even.
What does “strict right of way when coming from the right” mean? If it’s up for debate there’s usually either stops or yields, or road size rules (double yellow takes priority over local small roads)
When roads meet, whoever comes out of the street to your right has right of way. Signs can be put up to overrule this basic rule, for example when small side roads connect to a main road, but if for some reason no signs are posted, whoever comes out of that small road has right of way. Clear and simple.