I just sent this to my newly permitted son...who is also a young man of principles; he reads and follows *all the rules.* Curious how his gen thinks about this. I've personally made the exact same left on red mistake at a barren intersection a few times in my driving life...it was so natural it was terrifying!
The other day I was on a two way road and came to a stop light at an intersection which with a one-way cross street turning left. =↑=
The driver behind me in the left turn lane started waving frantically for me to turn as the intersection was clear and then pulled around me. I am sure she didn't realize that it was an illegal turn.
(would have been legal if we were also on a one way street)
Traffic lights are just a design failure. Roads that are a pleasure to drive on are always narrow roads or fast highways, neither of which need traffic lights albeit for opposite reasons. Traffic lights are only needed for sprawl when you need to manage 50 cars leaving the mall parking lot at a time. But there are usually better options, especially in cities. Rotaries that keep the flow going are better than stoplights. (DC gets this wrong and stupidly puts traffic lights at the rotary entrances, defeating the whole point, but other places use them to their advantage.)
But if we're going to have traffic lights, at least so long as we still have cars driven by humans instead of computers, then we should allow humans to do what humans do and exercise their discretion. It's dehumanizing to turn us into programmed rule-followers. We shouldn't just have right on red, we should have straight and left on red too! There is nothing that dramatizes the compliant rule follower more than the poor soul stopped for 30 seconds at a red light in the middle of nowhere with no cars as far as the eye can see. Some places are smart and reprogram their traffic lights to flashing reds in low traffic periods, which is a start. But for people supposedly living in the Age of Information, we are woefully incapable of using all that information to make our daily lives better. It's 2022 and we're still stuck with century-old traffic management technology. (Also, I hate to pull this one out, but how many tons of CO2 are pumped into the air every day by unnecessary idling, full brakes instead of rolling pauses at empty intersections, etc.?)
Someone might protest that traffic laws are necessary for public safety. O you adorable naive child! If they were really a matter of public safety, than the penalties for violating them would be jail time, like we do for DUI, not a $200 fine. Traffic laws are just another taxing scheme. The purpose of enforcing them without exception is to raise revenue, not to make anyone safer.
Too much here to answer, but as I said in the piece, I can see the case for getting rid of traffic lights and using roundabouts or simply having intersections without signals (stop signs, I guess, maybe not even on all corners.) That's why having a single exception to an otherwise hard rule, which is what right on red does, is bad.
I can't tell if you've read Charles Marohn's latest book or not, because you say some of what he says. His argument is that traffic safety is a design issue, not an enforcement issue. Not that we shouldn't have traffic laws, but that they're futile when the engineering itself is so bad.
Britain has a lot of roundabouts, but at the busiest of them they have installed traffic lights anyhow.
One thing I like about Britain and some other European countries is that they have, just before the light turns green, a few seconds where both the yellow and red lights turn on.
And in Britain, they don’t have left turn on red, but turning cars seem to have the right of way over pedestrians anywhere but a “zebra crossing.” As a pedestrian in Britain, I don’t like that.
When we lived in Massachusetts my husband and I always noticed that drivers act as if left turns have “right of way”. We also drove to work through the Concord, MA rotary which could be a harrowing experience.
I sorta kinda get your point-of-view, however this..."...right on red alters the primary rule governing turns from “red means stop” to “red means stop sometimes.”...is just wrong. It's always been "right turn on red after stop", so red still means stop - always. We might be better off doing a better job of making sure everyone understands the "...after stop" thing rather than doing away with the rule.
I just sent this to my newly permitted son...who is also a young man of principles; he reads and follows *all the rules.* Curious how his gen thinks about this. I've personally made the exact same left on red mistake at a barren intersection a few times in my driving life...it was so natural it was terrifying!
What a great comment!
The other day I was on a two way road and came to a stop light at an intersection which with a one-way cross street turning left. =↑=
The driver behind me in the left turn lane started waving frantically for me to turn as the intersection was clear and then pulled around me. I am sure she didn't realize that it was an illegal turn.
(would have been legal if we were also on a one way street)
Traffic lights are just a design failure. Roads that are a pleasure to drive on are always narrow roads or fast highways, neither of which need traffic lights albeit for opposite reasons. Traffic lights are only needed for sprawl when you need to manage 50 cars leaving the mall parking lot at a time. But there are usually better options, especially in cities. Rotaries that keep the flow going are better than stoplights. (DC gets this wrong and stupidly puts traffic lights at the rotary entrances, defeating the whole point, but other places use them to their advantage.)
But if we're going to have traffic lights, at least so long as we still have cars driven by humans instead of computers, then we should allow humans to do what humans do and exercise their discretion. It's dehumanizing to turn us into programmed rule-followers. We shouldn't just have right on red, we should have straight and left on red too! There is nothing that dramatizes the compliant rule follower more than the poor soul stopped for 30 seconds at a red light in the middle of nowhere with no cars as far as the eye can see. Some places are smart and reprogram their traffic lights to flashing reds in low traffic periods, which is a start. But for people supposedly living in the Age of Information, we are woefully incapable of using all that information to make our daily lives better. It's 2022 and we're still stuck with century-old traffic management technology. (Also, I hate to pull this one out, but how many tons of CO2 are pumped into the air every day by unnecessary idling, full brakes instead of rolling pauses at empty intersections, etc.?)
Someone might protest that traffic laws are necessary for public safety. O you adorable naive child! If they were really a matter of public safety, than the penalties for violating them would be jail time, like we do for DUI, not a $200 fine. Traffic laws are just another taxing scheme. The purpose of enforcing them without exception is to raise revenue, not to make anyone safer.
Too much here to answer, but as I said in the piece, I can see the case for getting rid of traffic lights and using roundabouts or simply having intersections without signals (stop signs, I guess, maybe not even on all corners.) That's why having a single exception to an otherwise hard rule, which is what right on red does, is bad.
I can't tell if you've read Charles Marohn's latest book or not, because you say some of what he says. His argument is that traffic safety is a design issue, not an enforcement issue. Not that we shouldn't have traffic laws, but that they're futile when the engineering itself is so bad.
Not yet but I have it wishlisted from the last time you recommended it! Dude sounds like he's on my wavelength.
Britain has a lot of roundabouts, but at the busiest of them they have installed traffic lights anyhow.
One thing I like about Britain and some other European countries is that they have, just before the light turns green, a few seconds where both the yellow and red lights turn on.
And in Britain, they don’t have left turn on red, but turning cars seem to have the right of way over pedestrians anywhere but a “zebra crossing.” As a pedestrian in Britain, I don’t like that.
When we lived in Massachusetts my husband and I always noticed that drivers act as if left turns have “right of way”. We also drove to work through the Concord, MA rotary which could be a harrowing experience.
I sorta kinda get your point-of-view, however this..."...right on red alters the primary rule governing turns from “red means stop” to “red means stop sometimes.”...is just wrong. It's always been "right turn on red after stop", so red still means stop - always. We might be better off doing a better job of making sure everyone understands the "...after stop" thing rather than doing away with the rule.
That is not my understanding. Right turn on red dates to the 1970s oil crisis: https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/saferjourney1/library/countermeasures/44.htm
No, it was long before that in California. The late 1950s, I think.