View Single Post
Old 06-06-13 | 03:01 PM
  #14  
cooker's Avatar
cooker
Prefers Cicero
20 Anniversary
 
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 12,860
Likes: 146
From: Toronto

Bikes: 1984 Trek 520; 2007 Bike Friday NWT; misc others

Originally Posted by jowilson
The traffic was clear (only one car a few hundred feet behind me) and I signaled a left turn, went into the left lane and made the turn. This was at around 9:30 at night.
That is one way to do it legally. If you're doing it at night you are probably legally required to have lights.

If traffic is heavy, or you don't feel confident out in the middle of it, you could take a longer route. Let's assume the picture is oriented like a map, and "up" is North. You could go straight through the intersection to the northwest corner (near the word 2001 on your picture), get close to the sidewalk, stop, and rotate your bike 90 degrees, wait for the light to change and then continue west through the intersection.

If there is no right-turn-only lane where I wait for the light to change in the westbound street, I like to be polite and get really close to the curb while I'm waiting for the light to change, in case cars want to turn right on red at that northwest corner, and they can go around me. However, just before the light changes, I move forward a little bit to block them, so they won't turn into me as I start into the intersection.

However if the westbound street has a right-turn-only lane, then I position myself out in the middle of that lane and well forward into the crosswalk, while waiting for the light to change, so the right turning cars can sneak behind me.

Orange line if westbound street has no right-turn-only lane. Yellow line if westbound street has a right-turn-only lane.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg
cross.jpg (81.7 KB, 16 views)

Last edited by cooker; 06-06-13 at 03:25 PM.
cooker is offline  
Reply