genec

So yesterday I am poised in the left turn lane ready to go when the light turns green... being all vehicular and all... and as the green comes on, I take off making my left into the far right lane of the cross road... only to be blocked by a right on red motorist who decided to take off right after I started moving.

So how in the world does a motorist, turning right on a RED light think they have priority over a cyclist making a left on a green light?

Yeah, I stopped and waited for mr clueless to get out of my ROW. I did give him a long blast on my Airzounds... got his attention...

unterhausen

airzound is good for that

Doohickie

Meh. People pull that ***** in front of cars, too.

spivonious

I've had similar things happen. Intersection with no turn arrows, I'm going straight, car across from is turning left. Light turns green, I start going, car turns left crossing in front of me. "Thanks for waiting!"

adamhenry

Yeah, I had a guy on a motorcycle make a right on red turn cut me off when I was making a u-turn on a green arrow while driving a large 4x4 pickup once and have had cars do it on many occasions. A blast from the horn usually results in lots of hand waving and dirty looks.

genec

Guess folks just don't quite get that RED means stop, and right on red means stop and look first. Amazing. ROR is one of the worst pieces of traffic legislation ever made...

"Flow over safety."

nelson249

Agree with Genec here. We have several high speed intersections around where I live with horrible sight lines. Still doesn't stop the idiots from pulling out and nearly getting spread all over the roadway. Our city fathers then wonder why one intersection near here is one of the worst in the province for safety. Never fear, however, they're going to turn it another intersection near it into a double roundabout. That should be a pile of laughs for pedestrians and cyclists.

Doohickie

I disagree. The problem isn't the law, it's the way it is commonly obeyed and enforced (as in virtually not at all). Just like any other traffic law, if you follow it, there is goodness in the world. But people are jerks.

unterhausen

yes they do, when I drove more there was much cursing at people brake-checking me because they didn't stop. However, it makes things really dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians. In State College, there is no right turn on red for most of the downtown area. This is good because the default is to go and then look. The one place I know where you can right turn on red is the scene of much motorist bullying of pedestrians.

genec

Drivers are jerks... so change the law and make them stop, use cameras if needed.

genec

Bullying of peds... I had forgotten all about that... saw that happening time after time down town when I was on Jury duty... motorists all but plowing into peds.

The thing that really gets me is that the one person in a car has NO MORE rights than one person on the street... but as soon as you put that one person in a car... they somehow feel that they are more important. Time for that to stop. We need laws that do not focus on "flow" but on safety.

Hey if you are late, you should have left earlier.

spivonious

What's a double roundabout? I actually prefer roundabouts to most intersections, but they're rare in PA.

delcrossv

That's a good signature line.

RaleighSport

I dunno man.. that's about par for the course for "people" not "drivers", I was picking up coffee for my dad this morning and on my way back to his place I got to the three way stop sign for our road.. I was turning left onto the road and had gotten there first, I saw a cyclist a ways back coming from the other direction but decided to exercise my ROW, anyways as it turns out the cyclist is either an ******* or oblivious. Once I'd stopped on the line completely he dialed it up and tried to blow the intersection.. too bad he hadn't entered it until I had already almost completed my turn.. he gave me one of those looks.. but I stared right back and he almost flinched with how fast he looked away... I think we encountered the same type of people Genec, just our transportation devices were reversed. Just to clarify, I stopped because I wasn't interested in playing chicken with him so I had to hang out in the intersection for him to gain 10-20 seconds, or probably a lot less since I'm guessing he dialed it right back down after that.

caloso

Exactly. I try not to take it personally.

DeadheadSF

Exactly - it's just the other driver's sense of entitlement kicking in. I see it all the time, literally every day, doesn't matter if I'm on a bike or car.

Doohickie

Yeah really. I don't know why they don't stay out of *MY* way.

rumrunn6

you were going left and the guy was going right, but then what? he decided to go left as well? if you're going left and he's going right, how do you two meet?

RaleighSport

Because the guy going right blows a red to do so, did you not actually read the OP and just skimmed it?

genec

We were approaching the intersections from opposite directions... try this:

I was going north, he was going south, a left for me goes west, a right for him goes west... we met in the same spot. He had a red light, I did not! Who was wrong?

Myosmith

If the motorist was expecting you to follow the same rules as a car, and you started in the far left lane, you should have made your turn into the left lane and then signalled your lane change into the right lane after completing the turn. If it was a double turn lane and you started in the rightmost left turn lane, you were correct in taking the right lane on the crossing road, otherwise it may have been you who was in the wrong by simultaneously making the turn and changing lanes as there is no way to adequately signal both moves at the same time.

This assumes it was a four lane crossroad with two lanes or more in each direction as indicated by your reference to "the far right lane".

nelson249

Below is the link for the planned changes to the intersections of Ottawa St with Homer Watson Blvd and Alpine Road in Kitchener. To add to the fun the interchange of the Conestoga Parkway for Homer Watson is in the middle of this dog's breakfast.

https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/re...C2010-1123.pdf

See page 24 Appendix C3 for the map of how this intersection will function.

I am generally OK with roundabouts but this is going to be a big mess.


Was in PA last month but was on the west side of the Susquehanna. Haven't been to Lancaster in quite a while. A good chunk of the people round here came from Lancaster County PA.

smasha

ROR means YIELD TO OTHER TRAFFIC.

i grew up in NJ, which had ROR since long before i can remember, and also had NO TURN ON RED signs posted where they're appropriate. in my years as an EMT in NJ, i never once attended a ROR crash. NJ drivers are generally good about it. that's probably because it's been the law in NJ for so long and/or NJ has better education about it.

that said, there are dicks who will ROR in front of someone with ROW, but it's actually pretty rare.

i've been out of the states for the last few years, and IIUC all states now have ROR laws. based on the above statement about ROR requiring stop and look, rather than stop and yield, i'd guess that education about this "new" law is lacking.

FWIW, when i was growing up in NJ, roundabouts (aka "traffic circles") were being removed and being replaced with traffic lights. IIUC, that trend is being reversed. here in NZ roundabouts are common, and i've had no issues bicycling through them. again... education and familiarity are keys to making any traffic infrastructure, good or bad, work.

CB HI

This is the correct legal traffic procedure, but somewhere along the line, even city and state governments have forgotten how the law works. Locally, the government has been putting up yield signs for the right turning vehicles even though they have their own lane to turn into and proceed.

Astrozombie

No thanks, save the lane changes for later and just go into the left most lane, can't trust anybody out there! Also somebody might take a red light and come up behind you flying.