As a long, hot summer winds down, it’s probably a good time for some questions from readers.
Patti asks, “While waiting to turn left at a green light, are two cars allowed in the intersection? Is the second car allowed in as long as they are not blocking the crosswalk?”
The short answer is: Yes. The more detailed explanation is that as soon as you cross the first crosswalk line you are “in” the intersection. Once a vehicle lawfully enters an intersection then it still maintains the right of way over cross traffic even when that cross traffic gets their green light. This allows for vehicles who waited to make a left turn time to clear the intersection. That second vehicle which pulls up over a crosswalk behind some in front who is waiting to turn left, is also now “in” the intersection.
As a driver of that second vehicle waiting to turn left, if you have decided to move up over the crosswalk, then you should turn left, following behind that first vehicle, if it’s safe to do so, rather than block that part of the intersection and/or the crosswalk.
This is a judgment call, based on traffic conditions and your own driving ability. Drivers in the lower mainland have this one down to art form. You might see 3 and even 4 vehicles jumping in behind that first left turner to get through the intersection. That’s over the top — because those last two vehicles have often run their own red light to squeeze in that left turn.
Blocking the crosswalk for pedestrians who come across when the light changes for them shouldn’t be a factor if you clear the intersection safely at the end of your green light cycle or if your judgment, based on the moment, says not to enter over the crosswalk in the first place.
What we don’t want however is drivers who refuse to turn left unless they have an advanced arrow, even when it’s perfectly clear to turn on a solid green light. This happens more than it should and is a great frustration to those stacked up behind you.
Vidas writes about another issue close to my heart as well: confusing road signs. Vidas’s peeve is about ill placed construction work signage. Does that random detour sign which suddenly appears at roadside mean there’s a detour coming up for me? Or is it there to inform drivers detoured from some other street that this is the route they should now follow? Like politics, words matter. Adding two simple words like “Detour Ahead” or “Detour Route” could clear up a lot of confusion. In addition Vidas rightly comments about why are these signs often left in place when the construction work is long over.
The Motor Vehicle Act regulations lay out clearly, even with little pictures and measurements, what the signs on BC roads have to look like. Municipal sign shops and the engineers in charge should glance over those regs once in a while.
For example, I’ve seen playground signs with wording which says the 30 km/h limit is in effect 24 hours a day. The problem is either you have a playground zone — 30 km/h from dawn till dusk as per the law — or you have a permanent 30 km/h speed zone. One part of the sign contradicts the other.
I saw a real sign blooper the other day where a construction crew working on an area bridge had erected a “Construction in Progress” sign with a 30 km/h speed limit attached. Trouble was the sign was placed on the bridge’s sidewalk, on the opposite side of the road. And no, the crew wasn’t just getting set up, they were hard at work. I suppose there could have been an issue with sidewalk joggers zipping past at better than 30k but I can’t say I noticed any.
Roel wants people educated about those loops or gouges embedded in the road near traffic signals, often in advanced left turn lanes controlled by a traffic light. Roel obviously has a technical background and points out that those loops are metal detectors which operate on the principle of electromagnetic induction. In other words, they are able to sense that a metallic object, like a car, has stopped over top and then send a signal to the light to change.
They are not pressure pads, meaning that if you sit back too far from those loops or drive too far past them they won’t activate. Result: You’re stuck in a forever waiting game for a red light that is never going to change. So, as Roel points out, just pull up to the painted stop line — no further — and wait for science to do the rest.
