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We have legal right turns on red here. Cars will look left for a gap, and not notice the pedestrian crossing to their right when the light turns green & walk a
by MaulingMonkey 8y ago
We have legal right turns on red here. Cars will look left for a gap, and not notice the pedestrian crossing to their right when the light turns green & walk at the same time. Distracted people might not go until the light turns green (no arrow, so they're supposed to yield), and not notice the pedestrian trying to cross when they got the walk symbol. Compounding matters - several drivers don't stop before the crosswalk like they're supposed to, so people in the rightmost lane go even farther into the crosswalk so they can look left for gaps in traffic - often fast enough they don't have time to react to pedestrians.
Cars turning left on green (but no arrow) often won't notice crossing pedestrians they're supposed to yield to either. They may stop, but now they're blocking oncoming traffic (often hazardous), so they're likely to try and clear the intersection if they feel there's enough room. Of course, they're probably also blocking the visibility of the person tailgaiting them, who will also go through the intersection as a result, enough room or not.
All that turning traffic accounts for 3 of the directions you have to check with a valid walk signal (everything but orthogonal traffic coming from the opposite side of the road) - the 4th comes from people running the tail end of red lights, which happens pretty frequently too. Even ignoring illegally short yellow light timings, people will try to squeeze in. Vroom vroom.
- chrisseaton 8y agoIf you’re allowed to turn right while lights are red for pedestrians that only means one lane can cross your path if you’re a pedestrian - the lane your sidewalk runs alongside.
- MaulingMonkey 8y agoIn this diagram: https://i.imgur.com/0Smz0Nk.png https://i.imgur.com/0Smz0Nk.png Legal right on red is contributing to the behavior of the car driving east and turning south (who hasn't noticed they now have a green light), as well as the the car driving north and turning east (who's LOS is blocked by a truck, SUV, small van with tinted windows, etc. and is pushing that far up so they can see left enough to spot a gap which they can use to turn right on red)
- chrisseaton 8y agoThat's crazy. They should just stop everything, full-stop, for pedestrians to cross. Every red light in this situation has a get-out clause, and no green light can be trusted.
- waits 8y agoNearly all intersections in the US are like this. Note that cars must stop before turning right on a red, so it’s not a total free-for-all. The stopping forces them to yield to pedestrians most of the time.
- MaulingMonkey 8y agoAnd to be fair, if these drivers were all properly following the law as written, the problems would be far fewer. It's not uncommon to have stop lines farther back from the crosswalks for middle lanes to help improve visibility for the right lane - but even the ones that aren't worn down are often ignored by inattentive drivers. You're supposed to fully stop before the crosswalk even when turning right, but many drivers turning right don't fully stop at all - and are at best planning to stop with the crosswalk blocked. You're not supposed to speed up when you see a yellow light. All these things are ticketable offenses, in theory. Between lax enforcement, lax punishments, lax driver education, and driving while texting, sleepy, high, or just plain drunk... well, I usually don't encounter problems from all 4 directions when crossing a street, but 1 or 2 is pretty common. I feel decently safe crossing, but only because I keep my head on a paranoid swivel. Occasionally I have to kinda hang out in the middle of the crosswalk for a few seconds while I wait for some idiots who failed to yield, and I'll throw up my hands in pantomimed exasperation...