Comment by afhsrtjwrtj
4 days ago
Why is right-on-red always cited as the biggest problem with turns? My anecdotal experience is that drivers turning on green are way more likely to hit me when I have a walk signal on the cross-street than drivers who turn right on red.
It's usually because a driver turning (right) on green doesn't have to worry about merging into traffic, so they only need to focus on pedestrians. Hopefully they will. A driver turning right on red has traffic coming from their left and pedestrians walking in front, and they're usually more concerned about the cars, so they tend to look left while turning right. Ouch. It's a growing issue as well because of the growing size of cars. Littler people can be completely concealed behind a front grille.
A car turning left on green is also an issue because while they should be able to see and wait for pedestrians, they're often occluded by other cars and trucks, and those left turners can be in a hurry to proceed through a gap in traffic.
Also, while technically a right on red should require one to come to a full stop, then start their turn, in practice many people are doing rights on red at rolling stops at significantly higher speeds.
On a green arrow turn, drivers are looking to where they are going. Legally crossing pedestrians are in that cross walk where the driver is looking.
With right on red, the driver is also looking to where they are going, but legally crossing pedestrians are not there, they are directly in front of the car.
The riskiest thing for a pedestrian is approaching a right on red car from the left, because the driver is simply not looking at you.
This seems to not actually be the case in my experience, because right-turn drivers love to look to the left while turning right, because they are afraid of a fast-moving car appearing from the left, but they think they already verified that no slow-moving peds are crossing on the right.
The big problem with right on red is that it perfectly synchronizes them to hit each other.
Say a driver and pedestrian are at the same corner facing the same way and the pedestrian wants to cross into the area the driver wants to turn. The street is busy so the driver can't turn right on the red and the pedestrian isn't gonna just walk against the signal into the traffic. Cross traffic lets up, either because of a big gap or because the light has cycled to red for the cross traffic. The conditions that both parties require before making their move have just been satisfied at the same time. The pedestrian walks and the driver turns, leading to inevitable conflict. If both the driver and the pedestrian are in a hurry and trying to shoot a gap in traffic and go quickly there can be no time for either party to avoid the accident.
Edit: The above example is crosswalks only, no dedicated pedestrian signals.
> Say a driver and pedestrian are at the same corner facing the same way and the pedestrian wants to cross into the area the driver wants to turn.
That's not a thing that normally happens though. In a regular four-way intersection, if a driver is at a red light, the pedestrians that are allowed to cross are the ones that are crossing the street the car is on. If the car wants to turn right on red, then the pedestrians it has a risk of hitting don't care about the traffic that the car needs to wait for.
The number of people that make right-on-reds that not once during the approach or during the turn look to their right is what makes it a problem. I have often been tempted to do one of those YT videos of people spending their day videoing people at intersections to show how prevalent bad behavior really is. I just have no presence there for it to make it worth my time. I know how bad it is, and adjust my personal behavior accordingly
Are you saying that a right-turn can be green simultaneous with the pedestrian's crossing light being green?
Because where I'm from, traffic lights are not allowed to be set up like that. No simultaneous green for crossing traffic flows, unless otherwise indicated (eg, an extra warning light+sign under the turn's traffic light flashing when it's green and off otherwise).
A car turning on a green light can be simultaneous with the pedestrian's crossing light being green. The driver is obligated to see the pedestrian and wait.
What's not simultaneous is a green turn arrow with a green ped crossing. Intersections in the US are designed so that a green arrow will mean the driver has no conflicts and can proceed.
Not everyone (both drivers and peds) understands that distinction.
I feel like I see a lot of fairly crazy intersections in my US city, where it feels like they break at least one expectation of the simple red/yellow/green patterns from drivers ed. I wouldn’t want to trust anyone’s life to assuming that a green arrow should mean I have the unconflicted right of way, let alone that others are even paying attention to their own signal
Yes: https://ibb.co/86tqnBM
Direct link: https://i.ibb.co/Hn36L27/Green-crossing.png
solid green (right turn allowed) + pedestrian green (for crossing).
car and ped both have access to ped crossing. (Car should yield to any ped in crossing.)
Also, I drew a picture before I realized that this wasn't what you were asking about. But I like the picture.
There is a way to mitigate the danger somewhat by giving pedestrians green light first, so when the car turns they are already in the middle of the road.
Yes. This pattern is normal in the US.
While vehicles are traveling north and south, the walk sign for crossing north and south is available. But vehicles are typically allowed to turn in the same cycle, protected lefts with their own cycle are common. Some intersections have a dedicated arrow for right turns and those will signal no rights while a walk sign is on, but otherwise pedestrians and right turns conflict.
> Are you saying that a right-turn can be green simultaneous with the pedestrian's crossing light being green?
I can't think of many places that I drive where this isn't the case.
The pedestrian crossing lights are in sync with the traffic lights, if traffic going N/S is green then the pedestrian lights going N/S will also be green even if cars are turning E/W
I know at least one intersection that crosses a bike path and walking path near me that changed recents so now oncoming traffic goes with the walk signal while turns are forbidden, then only right turns are allowed, then only left turns. It takes slightly longer to go through the cycle (particularly on busy days where pedestrians don’t yield the street for people to turn), but otherwise makes it much less stressful to go through that intersection regardless of my mode of transit around it
Drivers have to worry about the traffic which has the green light vs. just looking where they're going.
My anecdotal evidence is that everyone is looking out for themselves and people in bigger vehicles will always take advantage of that.