Right on Red: A Deadly Policy

In an article in Fast Company, Aimee Rawlins argues that “Right-on-red is an ill-conceived traffic rule that needs to die.” As Rawlins explains, “The policy harms even those pedestrians and cyclists who avoid being struck, forcing them to maneuver around cars that have edged into crosswalks.”

Turning right on red wasn’t always legal on U.S. roads. “Until 50 years ago, only a handful of Western states permitted drivers to turn at a red light. But the 1970s oil crisis prompted the federal government to insist that states change their traffic laws, hoping that right-on-red would reduce gas consumed while cars idle at traffic lights.”

After the policy went into place, “A 1982 study found that the new policy triggered a sharp increase in crashes involving conflicts between a pedestrian or cyclist and a right-turning vehicle. In Ohio, for instance, such collisions rose 57% for pedestrians and 80% for cyclists; in Wisconsin, the figures were 107% and 72%, respectively.”

Turning right on red also frequently forces drivers into the crosswalk, says Bill Schultheiss of Toole Design. “That means you’ve denied the right-of-way to somebody walking or biking because a driver is blocking their path,” Schultheiss adds.

“Since the federal government created much of the current mess with right-on-red, it would be sensible for Congress and the U.S. Department of Transportation to help clean it up” by linking right-on-red regulations to grant funding, for example. “For the moment, the most viable path for dropping right-on-red goes through cities that control their own traffic rules.”