Lights have to get smarter. Right on red is half the traffic flow in my area.* I always see so many situations where a green turn arrow would be appropriate, and yet the intersection is relying on the right-on-red rule instead, causing each car to pause when it should be flowing through. And even more situations where a light always stops the majority direction of traffic on what must be a fixed timer that poorly syncs with some upstream lights, because it always seems to turn red as a clump of cars arrives, even when there’s almost always no cross traffic. Maybe right on red is more dangerous in some places, and we can get rid of it, but we have to replace it with some actual civil engineering instead of making traffic even worse.
*±100% margin of error, sample size 1
How the hell did you get 0.5 cars going right on red? Did a car just plow through multiple houses between going straight and turning right at an intersection?
Your -2 comment score leads me to believe some people didn’t get your joke. I’ll explain it, which we all know will make it funnier.
The previous comment mentioned their observation of half of the traffic moving through right on red and, later in parentheses, said this was based on n=1, i.e., based on the observation of a single vehicle. I’m 100% certain that was a joke.
The follow-up comment was also certainly a joke. They’re pointing out that the commenter observed one car and then made the claim half of cars use right on red, so they’re jokingly asking how exactly half of one car made it through.
Get it? Now stop downvoting the dude, stats are great, stats dad jokes are better.
And today I learned that people should joke around more with statistics.
Yes, but with a ±100% margin of error, that means right on red traffic could be anywhere between 0 and 100%. I think it’s a safe assumption that with n=1 it’s one of those extremes, not fractional cars.
Its acting like both a wave and a particle
I’m My State when the lights turn green to take a Right the pedestrian light also gives the pedestrians the green light to cross. So we have cars turning right while pedestrians are crossing. How much safer is that. At least now when you take it right on red the pedestrians don’t have the right to cross.
Yeah you’re supposed to yield to pedestrians yet there are no signs indicating so, it’s so dangerous
Equally safe as if a vehicle was coming from your right. You are suppose to yield to those participants in traffic. It’s just that pedestrian can’t hurt you so they are commonly ignored. But they have equal rights and laws like every other participant.
USA has ass-backwards system for getting drivers license. At least from I could find online. You get learners permit after passing written exam. That’s not nearly enough. In my country you have to attend 20 hours (optional depending on existing licenses) of theory, then pass theoretical exam. Then you have a driving instructor assigned to you for total 40h (or 20h depending on existing licenses) in 1h sessions. You first start training court where you train to start, stop, turn and other driving maneuvers. When instructor deems you ready for traffic only then you get to drive with them in the car and having dual controls for the vehicle. Only when instructor deems you ready you are allowed to take the test for getting the license. And even on the test you first have to pass training court before you are allowed to enter traffic.
By the time you got learners permit you have at least 40h of driving in traffic which is significantly better than just passing written exam.
In my eyes, law is not the problem but experience and people paying attention. Phones, doing makeup, eating food and other things should be forbidden in car because it distracts you too much.
The US is too car-dependent to make a drivers license harder or more expensive to get. Less safety is the price we pay.
Yep, and we are generally not willing (as a society) to pay decent wages for things like teachers, so getting drivers ed teachers for all student drivers would be not possible. Private lessons would work but that would make it unavailable to a lot of less affluent people.
Your roads are wider as well, which someone thought was a great idea for lowering number of traffic accidents, but in reality it only makes people drive faster and more reckless.
Drivers are becoming hostile and idiotic by the day. What you’ll also notice is when it is green, they will stop instead.
Need higher or more severe penalties if this is to save lives
Green doesn’t mean go, it means you are allowed to go. Law specifically states that you are to enter an intersection only if there’s room for you. That is to say you can clear it and not clog the traffic. So no matter if it’s green if there’s congestion in the intersection you are not suppose to enter because that exacerbates the problem.
Personally, i think every infraction on the road should require your Drivers license gets revoked until you go to the dmv & retake your drivers test.
Speed? Blow a stop sigh? Illegally park? All of it should require a retest in order to regain your driving privileges…
Sounds like Revenue Generation to me. Some out of town driver doesn’t know about the local traffic law, gets cited for breaking it, and loses if they fight it.
If it makes it safer while generating revenue, it sounds good to me.
The revenue comes from people though. People who may or may not have the funds to pay it. It’s sneaky and mean
And fewer people could get hurt.
Edit: I don’t really care that much if some get fines, if it reduces deaths. And someone obviously has to start banning it first. Maybe it works wonderfully and everyone else starts banning it.
If it doesn’t help then then they should remove the ban.
Drivers should not have the option to decide for themselves when they think it’s safe
I hate this sentiment. They don’t want people to think for themselves.
Think they mean that most people don’t have the necessary knowledge to determine whether a specific action or inaction is safe. Which is absolutely true.
I don’t think that’s true at all and if it was we would have a way bigger problem to solve
I disagree. More often than not, people make the safe decision.
I don’t think we live on the same planet.
And yet, less than 50% of car trips result in crashes. Ergo, people make the safe decisions more often than not.
Uhh not by default! The pedestrian crosswalks need to be hooked to the light, and timed better. When a pedestrian needs to cross (with the button), then no right on red—after the cars go. That way there isn’t a rush by anyone.
They should ban slip lanes too
It’s banned in NYC but not enforced, so it may as well be legal. Then again, barreling through a red light also isn’t enforced.
This seems weird. Do you guys not have arrows for turning traffic? Just one set of solid lights??
For context, I suspect this is what you mean:
These were common in EU before getting deprecated.
Lol no wtf if that monstrosity.
I mean a second or even third column of lights that are left and/or right arrows.
Generally no, there’s one set of lights for each lane. And green circle means “you can go in any direction according to your lane”.
There are lights with multiple columns, but they’re rare. I can only think of one around here off the top of my head, and that’s because it’s on my commute home. It’s part of a weird six-way intersection where I can take a right either on my green arrow or on the green circle along with the lane to my left going straight (but we share a red). (This is also signed “no right on red”, but that’s pretty common around here.)
Green arrow means it’s a protected turn, i.e. oncoming traffic has a red.
The UK would have this to make it clear whether the turn is allowed and to confirm that there are no conflicting pedestrian green lights:
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With the advent of smart traffic lights I don’t really mind losing right on red. But right on red is not the source of the issue The article shows there are studies that it’s not the issue. Removing right on red is not going to improve the numbers.
The traffic light systems are complicated enough to handle camera data. How about we eat extra indicator lights when people are in the crosswalk? How about we put up some barriers and bad areas to keep people from jaywalking?
I’m not sure that the National Motorists Association, and organization that thinks drunk driving laws are unfair to motorists and claims to be a “grassroots organization” but refuses to provide any membership statistics or funding sources is a reliable source on the topic of right on red laws.
Unfortunately, like in so many other areas, the US is trending in the wrong direction compared to other countries. Traffic deaths is one of those areas.
look at the size of the most popular vehicles for various nations
issues is vehicle size to skirt fuel regulations not having the loop hole closed
About time.
I have a better idea… ban pedestrians!
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