Six-Forty at the No-Turn-on-Red Corner
At 6:40 p.m. on a Thursday you are northbound in the right lane of a four-lane arterial, approaching a signalized intersection with a shopping center on the far corner. Your destination is a hardware store half a mile past the intersection, but you are already in the lane marked RIGHT LANE MUST TURN RIGHT by a white-on-black regulatory sign mounted beside a raised concrete island; a solid white line separates it from the through lane for the last 200 feet. The signal is a steady red ball. On the mast arm are a NO TURN ON RED sign and, bolted directly beneath it, a plaque reading 7 AM-6 PM MON-FRI. A pedestrian has stepped off the curb to your right and is walking away from you in the crosswalk across the side street. Cross traffic is heavy and continuous. No officer or flagger is present.
1. At 6:40 p.m. on Thursday, exactly which rule governs your right turn, and what must happen before your wheels cross the limit line?
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Read the plaque as part of the sign above it - it modifies the prohibition, it does not stand alone.
- NO TURN ON RED, 7 AM-6 PM MON-FRI: the prohibition exists only inside that window. At 6:40 p.m. Thursday you are outside it, so the prohibition is not in force.
- That returns you to the general rule: after a complete stop at the limit line, a right turn on a steady red ball is permitted unless posted otherwise.
- The solid white line and the RIGHT LANE MUST TURN RIGHT sign mean the turn is your only legal movement - they do not require you to take it this instant.
- Before moving: full stop, yield to the pedestrian in the crosswalk (a pedestrian lawfully in the crosswalk has the right of way regardless of your signal), yield to cross traffic, and do not enter until your exit is clear.
Had the clock read 5:40 p.m., the same turn would be prohibited no matter how empty the cross street looked.
2. You actually wanted to continue straight. What were your options before the stop line, and what are they now that you are committed to the turn lane?
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Before the sign: the move should have happened upstream, at the first dashed-line segment or where the advance lane-assignment sign warned that the right lane turns. That was the lawful, low-risk moment to move left.
Now: you are committed. The realistic options and their costs:
- Make the right turn and recover - right again at the next street, a U-turn where legal, or through the shopping center driveway and back out. Costs two or three minutes and is entirely lawful.
- Crossing the solid white line at the stop line to force a straight movement: unsafe and generally a lane-change violation, cutting across the path of must-turn traffic, with a raised concrete island as a physical barrier. Not an option.
- Stopping in the turn lane to wait for a gap so you can merge left: you would be blocking a dedicated turn lane, which creates the rear-end crash the lane is designed to prevent.
The judgement being tested: a routing error is fixed with a routing fix, never with a last-second lane change.
3. The pedestrian signal starts its countdown while the pedestrian is still in the crosswalk you must cross. May you complete the turn?
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No. The permission to turn right on red is conditional on yielding, and a countdown does not transfer right of way to you.
- The flashing DON'T WALK and countdown are displayed to the pedestrian, but while anyone is in the crosswalk your turn path is occupied. Pedestrians who entered lawfully keep the right of way until they clear.
- Wait behind the limit line. Do not creep into the crosswalk to claim space; that blocks the pedestrian's path and is where most right-turn-on-red pedestrian collisions occur.
- Turn only when the crosswalk is clear of anyone in, or about to enter, your path and cross traffic has a gap.
- Watch for a second pedestrian or a runner entering late on the countdown. A countdown of 3 does not mean the crosswalk will be empty in three seconds.
The sign grants permission; the stop, the yield, and the crosswalk decide whether you may actually move.