The danger of a right turn on red at Collyer and Ninth
DEAR JOHNNIE >> I hate driving north/south on Collyer Street because the intersection with
Ninth Avenue is really annoying. Why can’t we make a legal right turn on a red light (like most intersections allow) onto Ninth Avenue? It is extremely frustrating having to sit and wait for the green arrow, particularly when there is literally no other traffic.
Can you shed some light on the logic behind this? — Annoyed
DEAR ANNOYED >> It’s because it’s not like most intersections on Ninth Avenue.
Bill Ploucher knows this as well as anyone, because he lives at the corner of Ninth and Collyer. Four times in the past 14 years, he told me, motorists driving through that intersection have ended up in his yard.
Ploucher had stepped out of his home on a recent morning to find out why in the heck this stranger was standing on the sidewalk, taking photos. Once he knew why I was there, he was eager to tell me about the problem he has with drivers who refuse to obey traffic signs and signals at the intersection.
He pointed to the low brick wall that wraps around his porch, where lines of whiter mortar, and nuts securing rods, reveal repairs that were required after a car smashed into the porch. Then Ploucher told me a story that will help answer your question.
A motorist was driving westbound on Ninth and had to swerve to the right to miss a car that was making a left turn onto Collyer, in front of her. That sudden redirection led her over the curb, through the yard and into the porch, as Ploucher recalled the police explanation. The at-fault driver, who had been northbound on Collyer, had taken a right turn on a red light at Ninth.
The issue, as confirmed by city Traffic Engineering Administrator Kyle Haworth, is the offset alignment of Collyer at Ninth.
“Restricting turning movements is necessary as vehicles crossing lanes to turn (onto Collyer) or continue on Ninth Avenue produce too many conflict points,” Haworth said in an email.
“Even a defensive driver can be caught off guard as it does not take much time for a previously unoccupied lane to quickly have a head-on vehicle in it.”
Annoyed, imagine that you’re the driver northbound on Collyer at Ninth. You intend to continue northbound once you cross Ninth. You think, why not make a right turn on red? You treat it as you would any other intersection, looking to your left to make sure there are no cars coming from the west and looking to your immediate right to watch for pedestrians. You pull onto Ninth, then immediately cross two lanes to take a left and continue north on Collyer. However, in those few seconds, you might not have noticed another car coming from the east into that same intersection at 35 mph, about 51 feet per second. After all, you weren’t focused on the westbound lanes when you entered the intersection.
Now imagine that you’re the westbound driver on Ninth. You approach the intersection, with a green light. You see no cars waiting to turn left in front of you, not even a single car approaching from the west. Everything in front of you looks clear. Imagine that for even a couple of seconds, you move your eyes away from the eastbound lanes — say, you glance to the right to see if there’s a driver wanting to take a right turn onto Ninth in front of you, or you notice someone getting into a parked car ahead of you. You look back, and, out of the blue, there’s a car taking a left turn in front of you.
You see, normally, a driver who is stopped at a red light and wants to continue on the same street, waits for a green light before continuing.
If that driver is going to make a right turn on red, it is not so that they can continue in the same direction they had been traveling. So drivers crossing through the far side of the intersection cannot imagine that your right turn on red will present a threat to them.
Therefore, right turns from Collyer onto Ninth are restricted. Rather, drivers must wait for a green right arrow. After turning onto Ninth, those drivers who want to continue on Collyer have a left-turn arrow so they can safely turn, while all other drivers have red lights.
Drivers who want to take left turns from Collyer onto Ninth have the same protection — a turn arrow. During the protected left turn phase, a driver taking a left turn onto Ninth will not expect that a car will suddenly appear from the right, which is what would happen if right turns were allowed on red. Additionally, that right-on-red driver coming from the other direction on Collyer might attempt to continue on Collyer, making a collision likely.
Finally, as Haworth noted, there are limited sightlines near that intersection due to on-street parking on Ninth Avenue.
Annoyed, I hope this explanation makes sense. As I noted years ago when answering a question about the intersection of Francis Street and 21st Avenue, safety supersedes efficiency. The annoyance of waiting an extra 10-15 seconds at an intersection is not as bad as the annoyance of a car crashing into your porch, or of a serious injury resulting from a near head-on collision.