The Flashing Yellow Arrow and a Full Block of Traffic
At 5:40 p.m. on a wet, overcast weekday you are westbound on a five-lane arterial: two through lanes in each direction plus a center lane marked with solid yellow lines on the outside and broken yellow lines inside. You are in the left-turn lane at a signalized intersection, and the left-turn head displays a flashing yellow arrow next to a sign reading LEFT TURN YIELD ON FLASHING YELLOW. Your destination, a hardware store, is on the left about 150 feet past the intersection. Beyond the light, the through lanes are jammed bumper to bumper for a full block, and oncoming traffic is continuous. It is the third time this month you have missed this driveway.
1. What exactly does the flashing yellow arrow allow, and what obligations come with it?
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A flashing yellow arrow is a permissive left turn, not a protected one. It says: you may turn left, but only after you have yielded to oncoming traffic, to pedestrians and cyclists in the crosswalk, and to any vehicle already lawfully in the intersection.
Contrast the three left-turn indications:
- Green arrow - protected; oncoming traffic is stopped.
- Solid green ball - you may turn left, but you must yield to oncoming traffic (same yield duty, different display).
- Flashing yellow arrow - same yield duty as the green ball, and it usually means the protected phase has ended.
Practical consequence: the arrow tells you that you may go if the way is clear. It does not tell you that you have right-of-way, and it gives you no priority over the oncoming stream.
2. The through lanes past the intersection are stopped solid. Should you pull forward on the arrow and wait inside the intersection for a gap?
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No - not under these conditions.
Entering to wait for a gap is only reasonable when you can see a realistic chance of completing the turn before the signal cycles. Here the through lanes are backed up for a full block, which means the cross street is already partly blocked; adding your car to the box makes it worse and may leave you sitting across the crosswalk or in the path of cross traffic when the light changes.
The rule of thumb: do not enter an intersection unless you can clear it. If you are already committed and the arrow ends, you are expected to finish the turn promptly and safely once the way opens - but you should never create that situation on purpose. The correct play at a jammed intersection is to hang back behind the stop line and wait for the next cycle or for traffic to drain.
3. You miss the driveway again. Can you use the center lane - solid yellow outside, broken yellow inside - to travel the 150 feet to the driveway?
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No. That center lane is a two-way left-turn lane, and its markings tell you its purpose: the broken yellow inside line permits entry from either direction, and the solid yellow outside lines mean traffic traveling in each direction may not cross them to use the lane as a through lane.
It exists so that left-turning vehicles can leave the through lanes and wait, out of the traffic stream, for a gap. It is not a travel lane, not a merge lane, and not a passing lane. Driving 150 feet down it to reach a driveway is exactly the use it is not designed for, and it puts you head-on toward vehicles in the same lane coming the other way.
Correct options: turn left at the signal and approach the store from the other direction, or continue and go around the block. Missing a driveway costs a minute; using the center lane wrongly risks a head-on crash.