Reply to Republicans are revving up for a D.C. smackdown

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "Republicans are revving up for a D.C. smackdown"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Okay with automated traffic camera, but why no turn on red? It is said that when the Council passed this in the Barry administration, the mayor already had a contract with a cony for making and posting no turn on red signs all over the city.

As a result, there are in fact very few places in DC where you can now do a right on red, so what necessitates a ban? In my view right on red is a great thing and puts us on par with our neighboring states, indeed with almost all of the states. Why is DC so special that we can't have right turn on red?[/quote]

Right on red is a disproportionately dangerous maneuver, especially in an urban area. While it doesn't produce a ton of fatalities, it produces tons of injuries for pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers. Almost every vehicle has to stick its front into a crosswalk to see oncoming traffic. Drivers looking in one direction for cars often miss people on the sidewalk going the other direction.

[b]Right on Red may have made sense once upon a time[/b], but things have changed too much in urban areas for it to make sense anymore. When people had small cars with clear glass, and there wasn't always an illegally parked car blocking your view, maybe it was safe enough to pull off. Now, good luck seeing through/around that blacked-out Suburban in the lane next to you and the blacked-out Range Rover illegally parked on the corner. Now when you pull into the crosswalk with your F-150, you're also hitting pedestrians in the head/torso instead of legs.

This is just one way drivers have essentially worked against their collective interests, while focusing on their own individual interests. If you make cars more dangerous to those outside them, then the law has to rebalance the total risk budget to get injuries lower. [/quote]

It didn't even make sense when it was adopted in the 1970s. There were already studies by 1982 that found that Right Turn On Red had increased crashes at signalized intersections, especially in urban areas, with pedestrians, and with pedestrians in urban areas.

https://www.iihs.org/topics/bibliography/t/Right%20turn%20on%20red[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics