Avoiding Red Lights

Ilpav

Ilpav

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Sep 3, 2006
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Location
GTA, Ontario, Canada
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'04 Toyota Corolla LE
Has anyone ever rolled up to a long red light and looked to the side and sees the little white "walk" man and you just wanna kill him because he won't go away? Well, I found a solution. Some people already know this, but how about when you want to make a left turn or go straight through an intersection, you just make a right turn and pull a u-turn as soon as possible (right after the island) so you can then go either left or straight (as if you were still standing at the red light.) I have done this many times (obviously when it isn't a busy intersection and there aren't a lot of cars around) and it saved me a lot of time.

What do you think?
 
only works in the us i'm afraid. ;)
 
As far as I'm aware that is illegal in most states in the US. Doesn't mean people don't do it, after all cutting through a parking lot is as well.
 
Yeah, that's called avoiding a traffic control device and is illegal in pretty much every state in the US so I imagine it is also illegal in Canada. I do also believe it is illegal to U-turn on a non-divided highway or road.
 
ryosuke said:
only works in the us i'm afraid. ;)
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Yeah, like pre-depression era US. Sounds more like how they drive over in India...

Actually, pulling out of my school (I was going right at the light) this Indian girl was sitting to turn left. Road was clear, so she cuts in front of me just as I was rolling up to the line :mad: goes right and makes a big U-turn and goes left. Just as she clears the intersection, the lights change.
 
Apart from that you can't do this here, I always found these kind of things pretty useless. Its like those guys jumping between the lanes in a three-lane-traffic jam. I often see guys jumping around like crazy to always be in the fastest lane at the time. Funnily enough, I always see these guys throughout the whole jam, so they don't really advance significantly through this. The only thing they do is annoy other drivers. On that basis, I also don't see the point of saving two minutes by doing that red light thing.
 
thedguy said:
As far as I'm aware that is illegal in most states in the US. Doesn't mean people don't do it, after all cutting through a parking lot is as well.
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I'm not so sure. You are making a legal right hand turn and a legal U-Turn there's not much they can do to you. I know you can't cut through a parking lot or anything to avoid a "traffic control device." As long as you are on the public roads I think you are ok. Anyway, if you do get pulled over just say, "Sorry officer, I realized after I turned that wasn't the street I wanted." Bingo - plausible explanation and reasonable doubt. The problem with the law is that it punishes intention not action. If you did the same thing and were pulled over, but had an out-of-state license there's no way a reasonable person would give you a citation.

Susurrate said:
Yeah, that's called avoiding a traffic control device and is illegal in pretty much every state in the US so I imagine it is also illegal in Canada. I do also believe it is illegal to U-turn on a non-divided highway or road.
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Most states in which I have driven allow U-turns except where prohibited or across a "painted median" - meaning two yellow stripes on each side (sometimes with cross hatch in between). You can U-Turn anywhere else as long as it meets the criteria in the driving code for distance from an intersection (if not turning at the intersection), hill, or turn.
 
Works in Melb. when you don't want to do Hook Turns, go past the intersection, make a U turn and turn left... but it will only give you a time advantage if the light just turned green... I believe Jug Handles are the same as Melb's Hook turn
 
andyhui01 said:
Works in Melb. when you don't want to do Hook Turns, go past the intersection, make a U turn and turn left... but it will only give you a time advantage if the light just turned green... I believe Jug Handles are the same as Melb's Hook turn
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Hook turns are dead simple, why waste time going down further then doing a U-turn??

I don't get what Ilpav is saying...
 
What's a jug handle/hook turn?
 
I'm surprised no one's posted this yet:



For what it's worth, I see this happening all the time over here.

Then again, I see people running red lights quite a bit, too. :p
 
Blind_Io said:
Most states in which I have driven allow U-turns except where prohibited or across a "painted median" - meaning two yellow stripes on each side (sometimes with cross hatch in between). You can U-Turn anywhere else as long as it meets the criteria in the driving code for distance from an intersection (if not turning at the intersection), hill, or turn.
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I'm not 100% on this, but here in Missouri it's illegal to make a U-turn at an intersection except where posted.

I avoid that originally posted technique on the basis that I feel it's an asshole move, and since I'm rarely in a hurry I don't bother with it.
 
watto said:
Hook turns are dead simple, why waste time going down further then doing a U-turn??

I don't get what Ilpav is saying...
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there are some junctions where I've waited for about 2 minutes to do a Hook Turn, esp the one right outside my house... because I turn from a main road to a small road, the green on the main road lasts forever... but I only do this when I'm in a hurry or there is a long line of cars waiting to do a hookturn.
 
As far as I'm aware that is illegal in most states in the US.
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Why the heck would that be? Technically speaking, there's nothing illegal about
a) Turning right on red (works in Canada, too, btw ;))
b) Making a uturn where in an intersection in which it is allowed

Why should it be illegal to combine them?
 
To me it falls into the category of Thought Crime. They can't prove your intention was to avoid the red light - just say you made a wrong turn and realized you were on the wrong street so you turned around.

Simple.
 
I believe you can say the same thing for going through a car-park, in the case you do get pulled over, just say that you decided against going to the store. or something.
 
I have never had the displeasure of attempting a hook turn. Maybe I should take a driving trip to Melbourne...............
 
i can speak atleast for Michigan that as long as you drive with a clear head and not in any way endangering others the local cops will let it slide, however if you get a jerk cop on a power-trip then thats another issue, happily all the police around here have their egos in check, so long as your not driving a 90s Mustang

as far as morality goes i find nothing wrong with it as long as nobody is being effected negatively, if the person is to cut off traffic and nearly cause a accident then thats a problem, but in most cases your easing congestion, and in that way your actually making the roads safer

most lights i would never do it at, it simply doesn't save any time and it just makes you travel further/loose more gas, but on my way to work their is a specific light that does each side of the 4 ways one at a time, about 45 seconds each. there is a road around it, so if i see it going yellow before i pass that road running parallel then i go for it
 
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