Rad Sallee's "Move It!" column in the Chron this week has a tip that will come in handy someday — uh, maybe. We're talking about a question Sallee got from a reader concerning whether you're supposed to pull out into an intersection when you're waiting to make a left turn. You know the situation: In heavy traffic, when you're waiting to make an unprotected left, you pull about halfway into the intersection and make the turn right after the light turns red. If you don't, as Chron reader Tom Hayden says, you can sit there through several red lights without being able to turn.
As Sallee notes, the Texas Drivers Handbook says you should stay on your side of the street and yield to oncoming traffic when turning left, but it doesn't specify anything about red lights. In the section on traffic lights, the manual is also unclear about this situation: It says not to enter an intersection when the light is red and says you can proceed through an intersection at a yellow light if you can't safely stop, but it says nothing about being in the middle of an intersection when the light turns red. Lisa Block, a DPS spokeswoman, didn't clear the issue up for Sallee either: "It is not against the law to pull into the intersection and wait for traffic to clear before turning left," she said, not mentioning the red-light question.
The potential tip comes in connection with the city's soon-to-be red-light camera system, which is supposed to ticket drivers who run red lights. But Sallee quotes a February Q-and-A with HPD Executive Assistant Police Chief Martha Montalvo about the camera system details:
Q: How do the cameras work?A: They're going to be attached to the signals, the traffic light signals. If a vehicle is coming at a certain rate or speed, the system knows it doesn't have enough time to stop, so it's going to run the intersection. So (the system) prepares itself, and when the vehicle does enter into the intersection, it starts taking the pictures.
Q: What if the driver enters the intersection while the light is yellow and it turns red while they're in the intersection?
A: Then it's not a red light. The light has to be visibly red as he's crossing the intersection.
Sounds like you left-turn creepers are home free. For the record, Houstonist much prefers the method of hanging out in the middle of the intersection to the traffic shock-and-awe technique in which people race to make a left turn in front of oncoming traffic as soon as the light turns green. Those people suck.
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