Why in the US can you turn right on a red light?

NEW YORK (CNN) — In the United States, running a red light when turning right has become a rule of the road. They often honk at you if you don’t accelerate enough.

But the widespread practice of driving is now coming under scrutiny and facing government sanctions for being too dangerous.

Years ago, moving to the right with red was mostly limited to California and a few other western states. Woody Allen declared in “Annie Hall” that he would never live in Los Angeles because the city’s “only cultural advantage is that you can turn right on a red light.”

The Right to Red spread throughout the country in the 1970s in response to the Arab oil embargo and oil rationing against the United States. States introduced it as a gas-saving measure: the theory was that it would reduce red-light times.

Congress accelerated states’ adoption of right-turn-red laws with the passage of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975. Right-turn to that law. On-Network (RTOR) made the approval of federal assistance “conditional on the authorization of. the most practicable and consistent with security.”

In 1972, 13 states approved RTORs, according to a legislative history of the practice in Connecticut. By the end of the decade, almost every state in the country had it. (It’s not New York City, though, and the patchwork of municipalities that do or don’t allow it adds to the confusion behind the wheel.)

dangerous roads

But cities are going crazy for the right lane.

Atlanta, Denver, Indianapolis, Washington, Raleigh, North Carolina and other major cities have recently proposed or passed laws restricting traffic in downtown areas or throughout the city. They believe this will protect pedestrians and bicyclists amid the highest number of pedestrian deaths in more than 40 years.

Turn right on red “introduces extra movement into the intersection,” said Eric Dumbaugh, a professor in Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning who studies traffic safety. This leads to drivers hitting pedestrians who see a green light and thinking it’s safe to cross, trucks hitting cyclists because they can’t see cyclists turning right, and rear-end collisions.

A survey by the city of Indianapolis, where pedestrian deaths hit a record high in 2022, found that over a five-year period, nearly 57% of car crashes involving pedestrians occurred because drivers failed to yield to people at all intersections.

In San Francisco, red light crashes account for less than 1% of all injury crashes, but 20% of pedestrian- or bicycle-related crashes.

“Our proposed ban on running red lights is to prioritize the well-being of pedestrians at intersections,” Atlanta Councilman Jason Dozier, who introduced the ban in some areas of the city, told X last week.

Nationwide, drivers killed at least 7,500 pedestrians in 2022, according to recent data from the Governors Highway Safety Association. That’s the highest number since 1981 (some states include bicyclists in their pedestrian fatality data, while others do not).

The reasons for this are: faster driving speeds, distracted drivers, lack of pedestrian- and truck-friendly road infrastructure, as well as increasingly heavier and taller SUVs.

In recent years, a few national studies have been conducted on the impact of right turns on red on pedestrian safety.

An examination of police-reported accident data from six states where RTOR laws were adopted between 1974 and 1977, as well as data from three states where the law did not change, found that accidents increased by more than 20% in states that allowed RTOR. .

A study conducted in 1982 found that people in urban areas increased more. in child pedestrians and elderly pedestrians after RTOR adoption.

Prohibiting right turns on red is “not a panacea for pedestrian safety problems,” Dumbaugh said, but it can help prevent pedestrian-car accidents at busy intersections.

“It’s part of a comprehensive security solution,” he said. Turning right on red is “something the United States does that most other countries don’t.”

However, these efforts face heavy pushback from some drivers, driver advocacy groups and lawmakers who argue that bans will make roads worse for drivers and cities worse for everyone. The right red envelope helps increase speed and ease traffic movement. And halving the speed limit would also curb injuries, but has been abandoned on the grounds that it is not generally good.

Atlanta’s anti-ROTR proposal faces opposition from some city lawmakers who fear it will cause congestion during major events in the city and also damage hotels. People don’t want to go on vacation in cities with big traffic jams. Other Atlanta lawmakers are concerned about increased traffic stops, over-policing and fines for black and other minority drivers. Studies have shown that black drivers are more likely to be stopped by the police.

In Indiana, a Republican state senator introduced legislation to retroactively repeal a right-wing red envelope ban in Indianapolis, calling it “stupid” and part of the “war on cars.”