It’s time to ban ‘right-on-red’

I'm from Italy and the first time we had a family vacation in the US we were honked a lot because we would stop at red lights. Only after 3 days we discovered that there's the "turn-on-red" rule and we were confused: if it's red, why can you turn?
In Italy (but I guess in all Europe works like this) we have a different approach on these situations: if the driver is at a traffic light and can make a turn, but it could be unsafe, the light turns into a blinking yellow light, so that the driver know that it must check well before going on.
- That's a different situation though. A green arrow means you have full right of way to make the turn. Right-on-red is more like a stop sign.
  
  Personally I do think that’s the real reason behind right on red: saving money for towns who don’t want to invest in more complicated traffic lights. Trading increased injuries for saving a little money
  
  Except, as I understand it, that arrow should be yellow and flashing, to indicate that pedestrians might also be crossing.
  Or, you know, the intersection could be sensibly designed so that pedestrians weren't at risk of being run over by cars, but that's not the American way.
  
  It’s even worse in some places like Texas where there is a right turn arrow but it’s not illegal to make a right on red either.
- US has the blinking yellow as well, but usually only in the left turn lane. Which just means yield to oncoming, go if it's safe.
  
  It is still relatively new, but should be more widely adopted.
- I remember when right on red was first implemented. The purpose was to save on fuel during the energy crisis back in the 70s/80s. It's saves some huge amount of green house gasses. A lot of localities spent a fortune on "no right on red" signs.
  Theoretically, right on red is a good thing, but theoretically, everybody follows the rules and nobody makes mistakes.
- In the Netherlands it's pretty simple: if the cars have a red light bikes and/or pedestrians have a green light. Turning right on red would be insanely dangerous.
  It's a good thing we have roundabouts whenever possible.
- Mexico, USA and Canada all have right on red. Exceptions are New York and Montreal, from what I know.there was a study that convinced Quebec to allow right turn on red everywhere except Montreal.
  I can't find the details on this study. Been looking for about an hour, but I'm not willing to pay 12 paywalls to potentially find more about it.
- If you turn left you're crossing the path of everyone with a green light. But if you turn right it's like merging.
  
  I don't see it that way: when you're merging you're going in the same direction of the traffic you're trying to merge into. At a traffic -light-controlled intersection most of the time you're perpendicular or at an uncomfortable angle.
- Does the blinking yellow light allow drivers to turn onto pedestrians crossing with a green pedestrian light? Cause here that's the only way you can turn in many intersections and that's not exactly safer. You shouldn't put this responsibility on the drivers at all.
  
  In Australia, "blinking yelloe" means "drive with caution" - roadway may be used bey pedestrians, slower traffic may have merged to faster, the traffic lights normal function might be impeded. Just basically a catch all for "be careful".
  Having acid that it's very rare that you'd find a blinking yellow on a turn across pedestrians - you'd get green arrow or light, pedestrians get green walk, and driver waits for pedestrians. It's not rocket science. You don't turn on red though.
  Then again we still have thrse fellas so maybe dont listen to us : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_turn
  
  Normally blinking yellow just means "traffic light disabled, treat this as a normal intersection"
  Turns are regulated by traffic lights with arrows, that's it. Although nowadays they try to replace as many traffic lights as possible with roundabouts.
  
  In the UK a blinking yellow means you can go if there's no pedestrians but you'll only ever get that at a pedestrian crossing on a straight road. Never an intersection. As in, a place where the only reason the light would ever change is a pedestrian pressed the button to request it. Usually then they'll go red for a few seconds, then blinking yellow to allow extra time for slower people to cross.
  At intersections you might get green arrows to indicate you can go only in that direction. For example it might allow going straight but not turning because pedestrians are crossing the side road.
  There's never a case where red means anything other than you must stop and I've never seen a case where both vehicles and pedestrians would get a green light for the same piece of road at the same time.
  
  Yes. Yellow blinking light (in Portugal) means you can advance with caution. If you kill someone, its your responsibility.
  Edit: usually its on zones with low pedestrian traffic. On more busy zones its red/green to turn as normal

Other things they need to ban in driving:
Shitheads who refuse to use turn signals. Not shoulder checking. Not Leaving a gap. leaving your high beams on. Not Getting to the side for emergency vehicles. Doing multiple lane changes all at once.
These are already not legal but too many drivers do this shit. No one is reinforcing it.
Looking for excuses to Turn off your brain just cuz your foot is on the gas pedal should be when you have your licence taken away.
- I was recently proposing regular drivers re-tests as a solution.
  My teen has already developed some bad driving habits, like we all do, and is focused on not doing them during his upcoming driving test. For example, what if he fails for driving a little too fast?
  Similarly, maybe if people had to think about their bad driving habits and risked losing their license if they slipped back into them, maybe it would help reinforce safer havits
  
  The idea someone gets lisenced once and never retests for decades is absurd. Road rules, car technology, bad habits, and health issues all may change drastically over that time period. Regular retesting would be expensive but should be done. Make the drivers pay for it and use it to reduce the subsidizing of roads.
  
  Every renewal should be a retest with increasing frequency after 55.
  
  What stopped me from driving too fast, when I developed that habit, was the realization that my eyes and brain can't process fast enough to prevent the worst possible scenario. A child runs out from between two parked cars? The 10 miles an hour between 25 and 35 makes all the difference.
- If they're illegal aren't they already banned? I don't understand. Enforcement is a completely different argument.
- This just makes me sad that the police won't do what we actually want them to do.
  
  I think the car has got so common and roads so vast that it is nearly impossible for the existing police service to effectively police the roadways causing a focus on the most extreme violations.
  I passed a cop doing radar in a school zone the other day, average speed was 15 over and they didnt pull anyone. They probably still handed out several tickets for 20+ over in that zone but they couldnt ticket 80% of the drivers on the route as it was too busy.
- Shoulder checking isn't even necessary. People just don't set their side mirrors correctly. If you can see your own car in your side mirrors, they're incorrect. Or I guess I should say inefficient for what they are trying to accomplish.
  Setting those properly would do a lot of people a lot of good.
  Edit: I should clarify, I'm assuming shoulder checking meaning looking back, beyond 90 degrees to look backwards. Most people do this to check the "blindspot", but this basically doesn't exist if mirrors are correctly set. You still need to check the immediate sides of the car.
  
  Blind spot is in all cars back passenger side window. It’s so well known that it is taught to avoid that spot while riding a motorbike. Refusing it exists makes you all that more dangerous behind a murder machine.
  
  The blindspot absolutely exists with mirrors. It's just bigger or smaller depending on vehicle size.

I bike whenever possible so I drive too, so I've seen both sides of this coin.
Too many rubbish motorists get impatient while driving. Apparently waiting ten seconds is too big an ask for them. I've stopped at intersections waiting to turn right and idiots behind me honk because they didn't see the "NO TURN ON RED" sign.
There is an intersection where there are two roads crossing at right angles—an ordinary intersection, but one of the roads leading into it has a steep slope, so when I go down that slope on a bike to catch a green light, I end up going pretty fast. The problem is that motor traffic turning right often fails to give way to me (or others) in the bike lane going straight forward. This leads to an unusually high number of collisions and near-collisions, luckily none leading to serious injury—yet. This is in a college campus so motor traffic is slow.
- In my city there is a new light rail/tram line that, unlike all the previous lines, doesn't have arms at any of the level crossings. So right turns on red have been disallowed along the line so drivers don't unwittingly turn in front of a train.
  Turns out drivers tend to have poor situational awareness and will ignore rules that seem mildly inconvenient. The number of cars that have turned directly into the side of a train is both hysterical and alarming.
  So yeah, it would be much safer if we disallowed rights on red as a general rule, and had specific exceptions in places where an unaware or impatient driver won't be putting anyone's life at risk.
- Almost like bikes and cars should not be forced to share the same infrastructure.

People don't pay attention at crossings where you're not allowed to make a right on red, either. The problem isn't the rule; it's people not actually looking where they are moving.
- Drivers don't even stop until they've completely crossed the crosswalk. Banning right on red only works if steel barriers emerge from the ground to protect crossers because that will actually make cars stop at the stop line.
  
  I'm going to put some of the blame on whatever department it is that handles the municipal gardening. The highway department designs and builds an intersection, then in comes the state HOA who says "Big spherical bush right here at the apex of the corner. S'purty." "But now driver's can't see oncoming traffi-" "I SAID S'PURTY!!!1!"
  
  Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Banning right-on-red gets us another step closer to dethroning cars as default transportation.
- We added bike lanes here and wherever the lanes are we added no rights on red. There's a light for the bike lane, and prominent no right on red signs.
  People still do it.
- How have I never read "colonic" when seeing their name before. That ball instead of the O must've thrown me off.

Pedestrian scramble is probably more appropriate than banning right on red, and is proven to greatly reduce accidents. No need to have cars sitting idling longer than needed and adding to congestion. Ive also worked in a downtown area where pedestrian traffic could get so heavy cars couldn't turn right on green.
- What's pedestrian scramble?
  
  Dedicated cycle for pedestrians, all way crossing so they can cross diagonally too. It separates cars and pedestrians completely.
  
  There's a famous intersection in Tokyo that does shows this. I wouldn't be surprised you haven't seen this in some form or another.

Meh, shits actually quite rare. https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/outreach/traftech/1995/tt086.htm
When folks are talking to you in percentages and avoid absolutes you can assume they are massaging the message to be more palatable to the intended audience.
- Hate to break it to you but that link is talking in percentages. The only absolute number the give is number of fatalities, everything else is a percentage. Specifically, it claims that because turning right on red represents a small % of overall injuries from all traffic it's not unsafe. That's not an exaggeration, it's literally the conclusion they give.
  In conclusion, there are a relatively small number of deaths and injuries each year caused by right-turn-on-red crashes. These represent a very small percentage of all crashes, deaths, and injuries. Because the number of crashes due to right-turn-on-red is small, the impact on traffic safety, therefore, has also been small. Insufficient data exist to analyze left turn on red.
  A bullet to the arm is safer than a bullet to the head but that doesn't make it safe.
  
  Approximately 84 fatal crashes occurred per year during the 1982-1992 time period involving a right-turning vehicle at an intersection where RTOR is permitted. During this same time period there were 485,104 fatalities.
  Thus, less than 0.2 percent of all fatalities involved a right-turning vehicle maneuver at an intersection where RTOR is permitted. FARS, however, does not discern whether the traffic signal was red. Therefore, the actual number of fatal RTOR crashes is somewhere between zero and 84 and may be closer to zero than 84.
  They literally use numbers in their report.
  
  You people won't stop until folks are living in a bubble under gun point. There is always another low value crusade that most people don't want to hear about just shoved in their faces.
- Accidents are rare, sure, and fatalities are rare because the relatively low speed impact. We can nevertheless aspire to create more inclusive infrastructure where pedestrians and cyclists can feel a sense of belonging. The car-centric roads we have in the US today could be better for everyone.
  
  And banning right in red ain't it. It'll be ineffective, piss off drivers, and have little to no meaningful effect. If you want to blow political capital in this worthless shit more power to us but I'll prefer a pragmatic approach that has a chance of being effective.
- Fatalities are one thing to consider. Another is injuries that can range from minor to life changing.
  I don't know the stats on this but pedestrian injuries would be something for policy makers to consider as well.
  And in general:
  If deaths are up it's safe to assume injuries are up as well
  Good policy making also involves preventing problems, and educating people on the issue. If 0.2% of deaths is acceptable and trending up at what point do we take action? 0.5%? 1%? 5%?
  I don't think that the US even tracks injuries at least I can't find anything from a cursory search. But according to Vancouver RTOR is 13% of all deaths and serious injuries. https://viewpointvancouver.ca/2022/08/23/rethinking-the-right-turn-on-red/
- Ninety-three percent of RTOR pedestrian or bicyclist crashes resulted in injury.
  So, one of the data sources they use is for fatal injuries only and it appears that right turn on red accidents are not usually fatal. Ok, but look at that injury rate; injuries that are not fatal but could still be life-changing.
  That article also talks about the limitations of the second data source they use
  My overall reaction to that article is not “meh, no big deal”, but “crap, we should have better data on this”. Anecdotally, I’ve seen much worse driving behavior since COViD, where it’s becoming all too common for cars to not even slow down for right on red, and people here online are trying to defend that you don’t even need to stop despite that being clearly stated in the law. I do have a nice walkable downtown, but walking it has been getting more dangerous in recent years: if you hit my kid because you didn’t feel like stopping, it won’t be at all comforting for you to say “meh, it’s not a fatality”

What's the fatality rate for right-on-green? That scenario always seems more dangerous to me than right-on-red unless you have a light where pedestrians get a cycle to themselves. You have the same danger with not seeing a pedestrian, but now you aren't even supposed to stop first, just make the check and decision while moving.
- Drivers don't t have to look left on right in green, so should naturally look in the direction they're going, and thus see pedestrians and cyclists.
  They also have time to spot them while waiting.
- At least in the UK, the pedestrian/cyclist green light turns green before the motor's. So by the time the cars reach the crossroad, there's already a stream of pedestrians to prevent the cars to go. So they are forced to wait until that stream is over.
  That being said, if you're not within the first stream, it's still pretty dangerous.
  
  There are two pedestrian crosswalks out of dozens in the town I live in that work this way. Confuses the crap out of the pedestrians and the drivers, as they aren't expecting it to work that way.
  All the other intersections are timed so drivers and pedestrians go at the same time. If we switched all the intersections to allow pedestrians to go first, I think that would be safer. Getting city council to do anything is another issue.
  
  I have a question about these. Where I live there's typically a green light for pedestrians, red for cars at the start of the cycle. Then it switches to green for cars, flashing for pedestrians, which means that cars have to give way, pedestrians may finish crossing, but no pedestrians may start crossing.
  I am a fast walker, in a hurry, confident at dodging cars, and this is a slow intersection. I arrive at the crosswalk when the pedestrian light is flashing but cross anyway, I know I have plenty of time. Turning car honks on having to give way to me.
  Which rule takes priority? I think that even though I'm technically breaking the rules, the car should still have to follow the rules and give way to pedestrians.
  
  In the UK pedestrians will never have a green light while cars have a green light and the timings wait until pedestrians will have finished crossing before allowing cars. There might be some slow walkers or people who crossed without green (it's dangerous but not illegal) but everything is done to ensure neither pedestrians nor cars are told to go while the other isn't told to stop.
- All turns should be taught and enforced to be yields and performed at extremely low speeds.
- On a green light, pedestrians are not expecting the car to stop so would be foolish to walk in front of it until it does.
  Bicyclists are another story. As a driver I wouldn’t turn across another car since I won’t be turning across one. However I will be turning across a bike lane so could I miss one? It does seem like a gap in practice with an increased risk
  
  Pedestrians very often get the green walk sign at the same time as cars in the same direction get the green straight ahead sign that implicitly allows right turns as well. In that scenario, the cars are often located just behind the pedestrian's peripheral vision, and the cars are looking up and ahead at the light (or maybe to their left if they were previously hoping to execute a right on red and waiting for a gap in traffic), so it becomes basically exactly what you were talking about with bikes. Cars turning across a "lane" of pedestrian traffic with neither party having good visibility of the other. There are a couple of solutions/mitigations in use for this problem, dedicated "all-red" pedestrian cycles, protected intersections that move vulnerable road users further forward to be more visible, and advanced pedestrian greens that make cars wait until pedestrians are already in the intersection and more visible before getting the go ahead. Or, if your city is like mine and car-centric, they might stick up a yellow sign on the opposite light post across the stroad that says "pedestrians yield to turning vehicles" in text that is just barely legible from across the street at an intersection that has audible wait and walk indicators for blind people who definitely can't read that sign and will thus be endangered for not getting the memo (not that car drivers are reading it either, so several considerate drivers will wave the pedestrians forward, further confusing the right of way situation). Fun!
  In short, every turn you make as a driver should be accompanied by a check for vulnerable road users like cyclists and pedestrians because our infrastructure will not necessarily put them in a place that is easily visible to you
  
  Pedestrians have the right of way and get the walk signal on the green, is it really that foolish? Also children, elderly, visually/auditory impaired people all also cross the street. It is 100% the responsibility of the driver to ensure the intersection is clear before traveling through it, this includes clear of pedestrians.

Man, this one is tough. I enjoy not having to wait, but I've experienced this cognitive overload both as a driver getting surprised then aborting my turn abruptly and as a pedestrian when the driver is too busy watching traffic to look at me, making me nervous about stepping into the crosswalk.
I'm not surprised to read this rule causes accidents.

Considering my sister just got hit because of a right on red while she was crossing an intersection... yeah its just a mess.
She's okay ish. Very bruised. Lucky nothing else happened.
Dude hit and ran.
Very frustrating.

Maybe a good starting point in the US would be to ban it in cities or ban it anywhere there's a side walk / bike lane? That way you might avoid a lot of the hicks who would inevideably be super against this.
- Those hicks are the ones that won't pay attention to if there's a crosswalk.
  They are the problem.
  Fuck catering to them

"The driver inches into the crosswalk, watching the oncoming traffic to his left and waiting for a gap to appear. He finally spots one and accelerates into the turn"
Um, what? There are cars zooming across the crosswalk, which definitely wouldn't have a crossing signal. In this imaginary scenario, a pedestrian is trying to sprint across an intersection against a crossing signal.
There are enough horrific traffic situations created by cars and urban congestion, do we really need to make up a stupid and unlikely one where the pedestrian is the idiot? If anything, this article should be against right on green. Good luck with that.
- I think the article means that a pedestrian is trying to cross in front of the turning car where the pedestrian does have right of way, so perpendicular to the turning car and parallel with the traffic which has the green light and walk signal.
  
  Why would there be a "gap" in that case? It's just a poor example.
- ====== ==== P C
  P is pedestrian, C is car. Equal signs are cars going right.
  Pedestrian is crossing the road going left. Pedestrian has a green light/cross walk. The car C isn't looking at P; the car C is looking at the gap in the equal signs.
  
  So a pedestrian walks in front of a car that has pulled into a crosswalk while the driver is looking the other way? And then after all of these specific conditions are met, a pedestrian is hit by a car that is starting from a dead stop and, given the width of a crosswalk (which it's already pulled into), travels three feet before impact?
  My point is given how many actually dangerous traffic conditions that exist that inhibit walkability, this statistically unlikely (see the report to congress on "RoR" accident frequency below) and extremely specific scenario seems like a stupid one to focus on.
- Dude. It fucking happens. People die. It's not hard to find out. Don't rely on your own thought experiments when there is actual fucking data at your fingertips.

Recent such here:
https://www.wane.com/top-stories/heavy-police-presence-at-e-state-boulevard-and-sherborne-boulevard/

The problem is that it's too easy to get a driver's licence and retain it without updating or testing in any way. Make it more difficult for terrible drivers who are inattentive or unable, to get a licence in the first place. In the 90's and 00's I worked as a Paramedic in a number of major cities and it was terrible then. Now it's even worse. There are so many distractions and everything moves even faster. Some people just can't manage it and should not drive.
- I spent a couple years as a driving instructor and licensing examiner. It is disturbing how hamstrung I was on failing people. And that many people openly talked about losing good habits/forgetting important info now that they don't have to test any more is an extra layer of terrifying. Mandatory retesting every 3-5 years, more if someone has a lot of infraction/collisions, and yearly after 65.

I'm also hoping people will stay behind the crosswalk instead of slowly inching forward until, I kid you not, they are literally in the intersection with their back tire over the second line.

It was banned in Montreal and it should be banned everywhere, yes.
I see people get close calls every week in my small 20k "friendly" town. Makes me miss my city dearly.

The stop lights are so dumb, it's just rubbing off on drivers.

I find absolutely baffling that the red signal, the signal made specifically to mean stop, the stop signal, can allow traffic to go through it. If you really need to let cars to go through, just add another traffic light for conversions
- Do you find it baffling that a stop sign also allows traffic to go through it?
  
  Not really cause the function isn't the same. A red light means stop indefinitely until the light stops being red, a stop sign is more of a stop and then go. I do admit my wording was rather poor, tho.
  In my country the Red Light is a predicable function of the road, so turning right on red is fundamentally removing part of the function of the red light. I know crossings in some countries are...weird, but here, if you see the light turning red and are immediately in front of the stopped traffic, you can cross it to the median cause no traffic is going to cross it. A right on red remove this predicability, and even if you absolutely need to have this function, you can just add another traffic light that controls that lane.
  
  This was my thought as well
  
  Not without stopping.
  Here in Finland, red light also does mean you shall not pass the main indicator. Right on red feels like a useful innovation sometimes, but it would complicate a brilliantly simple law.

Nah, thanks though.

- Thos article literally points out how drivers are not aware of the pedestrians routinely put at risk by this insane rule and links to studies supporting their point.
  It's a shame you find it so torturous to wait a few seconds at a red light but that is absolutely not worth risking other people's lives.
  
  Nah, it's rare. https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/outreach/traftech/1995/tt086.htm
  
  Its not an insane rule, but an established norm in most areas. What has been for 50 years hasn't suddenly become dangerous.
  What has changed in my county is relaxed situational awareness, false security, and avoidance in basic nonverbal communication such as simple eye contact.
  People complain my city isn't walkable friendly, but I have a 3 mile exercise loop I do weekly for 4 years and never, never had a problem. Just be alert and smart. Eye contact, visibility, follow rules... that's middle school stuff.
  Also, the "few seconds" argument is long in the tooth as a recent "calming" measure removed a right lane and traffic now backs up 3 blocks. I waited 3 light cycles to get through an intersection. I don't buy that "few seconds" fluff after that nonsence.
  Who knew letting cars OUT of traffic efficiently REDUCES congestion?!
  Crowd gasps
- People who don't make mistakes don't need rules to reduce the number of mistakes they could have made if they do make mistakes.
  Your statement is a tautology.
- Did you ever see people drive in America?
- yeah, i don't understand why people just want to make driving more annoying. implement better public transportation options, don't destroy something most people feel some sort of enjoyment of / nostalgia for / etc. just like the piracy argument about how you need to make legitimate services better than the bad option
  
  yeah, i don’t understand why people just want to make driving more annoying.
  They want to make walking more safer.
  
  That enjoyment/nostalgia comes at the expense of others safety, drains our economy and helps cause the ecological collapse of our planet

if its banned I will do it anyway
- Why?
  
  because it saves a huge ammount of time