Rules of the Road
I just got back from a 2000+ mile drive through
Oregon, Washinton, Idaho, Nevada and (of course) California. This is a trip we
take almost every year to visit
family.
My mother-in-law, who lives in
Idaho, mentioned that a friend of hers received a traffic citation for making a
left turn into the middle of three available lanes. The citing officer said that
the law is that you have to turn into the nearest available lane to complete a
left or right turn.
I'm a California
boy, and the law on this in California is that a left turn may be completed in
any available lane. I frequently make a left turn at an intersection near my
home and complete it in lane 4 (that's the rightmost of four lanes) of the
street I'm turning onto. This is perfectly legal in
California.
So I couldn't believe that
Idaho was so backward about this. So I did what any red-blooded geek would do: I
looked it up online. And guess what? That citing officer was correct: in Idaho,
left or right turns must be completed in the closest available lane.
That seemed so backward that I looked
up the rules for other states neighboring California. And every one of them
(that's Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona) require left turns to be
completed in the nearest available lane. So, looks like California is the only
state that is "out of step".
Anyone
reading this in some other state than the ones mentioned? What's the law in your
state? I might do a follow up if I ever discover another state that allows a
left into any available lane. Email me:
kimgh@mac.com
I should note: even in
CA, a right turn must be completed in the rightmost lane. This is ignored by
most drivers in any state I've driven in (including me on occasion). But it's
definitely the law everywhere.
Posted: Tue - August 30, 2005 at 03:37 PM