We’ve all been there: stuck at a green light, left blinker on, just waiting for a chance to make a turn with a non-stop stream of cars coming at you in the opposite direction – looking for a small window of opportunity.
Or maybe the light finally changes to yellow, the oncoming cars finally stop, and now…only now… as it changes to red, do you find the chance to sneak through.
Well, Los Angeles is trying to make those nail-biting left turns safer.
California car culture is famous for the “rolling stop” and something else: what SFGATE recently called the “LA left turn” – the turn that is “wild, dangerous, and largely unregulated.”
They’re not wrong.
It may be an unwritten rule that vehicles already in an intersection can complete their left turn even when the light changes – but that doesn’t make it safe.
The Los Angeles Police Department says hazardous left turns trail only DUIs, speeding, tailgating and failing to stop at red lights are among the riskiest violations that cause collisions.
One of the fixes: intersections with dedicated left turn signals.
L.A. currently has 1,752 intersections with left turn signals. This fiscal year, 27 intersections have been added to the left turn list. Another eight should have left turn signals by the end of June.
No more white-knuckle turns – at least that’s the theory. It’s safer for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, around 20% of all car crashes involve left-hand turns. Also, left turns account for a quarter of all crashes involving pedestrians, according to National Public Radio.
Now that you have a left turn signal, you need to know whether it’s a “protected left turn” or something newer called “protected-permissive.”
Protected left turns are your standard left arrow that turns green, yellow, and red, giving you specific time to make your left turn.
Protected-permissive left turns have a green arrow and then a yellow arrow, and then it will be green for you and the cross traffic. Basically, it’s a head-start on a left turn before oncoming traffic can proceed.
As always, cross traffic still has the right of way.
If you live and work at a location that needs a dedicated left turn signal, you can request one.
Constituents can file requests for new signals with their City Council office, which would evaluate the need and push for the funding.
Constituents may also file a traffic safety concern for a particular intersection using the MyLA311 app, on lacity.gov/myla311 or calling 311. LADOT engineers will then review locations for potential safety issues and solutions.
