1 LEFT TURNS
1 LEFT TURNS
I tried to start something last night and I couldn’t think of any topic that wouldn’t drive people away or make them feel so useless as to not come back to learn anymore.
We all need to pay attention while we are driving. One distracting moment or one mistake is all it takes to crash or worse, kill someone. The fact that we haven’t already is that we see the danger at the last minute and avoid it, they see us coming and avoid us or we miss each other by inches and are totally unaware that we came so close to crashing.
[Yes, I’m saying ‘we’ because, even though driving is my job and I have to be a professional all the time, I still make mistakes. Some you see, others you don’t.]
Most of us think that we are good drivers. We compare ourselves to ourselves and, without knowing any better, we give ourselves a passing grade.
It is my hope, here, to educate without accusing or belittling anyone; we all can only drive to the best that we know how. When we make a mistake and feel like a jerk, unless we know how to change our driving habits, we will probably make that mistake again. You cannot change unless you have someone or something that can give you the knowledge you need to correct yourself. After saying all that, I thought that I might start with ‘the right of way’ or ‘who is supposed to go first in any given situation.
In all my driving career, at a stop sign, light, intersection, parking lot or side street and weather you have a stop sign or not; anyone making a left turn must yield the right of way to oncoming traffic.
So, you have your signal light on to turn left and another car is coming towards you, you must wait until he passes and then you can make your left turn. This is true on straight roads, at intersections and parking lots.
Two cars get to an intersection at about the same time and are facing each other; both of them have a stop sign and there is no other traffic in the area. One is turning left and the other is going straight through. The car going straight through has the right of way and should be allowed to go first.
If you are the one making the left turn, you should wait and let the oncoming car go first. If you are the car going straight through, you should start across the intersection but make sure that the left turning vehicle is going to give you the right of way; if they are not, it is better to let them go than to be in a crash. DO NOT WAVE THEM THROUGH AHEAD OF YOU. If you take it upon yourself to give someone else your right of way; you take on the responsibility for their safety to do so. If another car comes along and hits them while they are taking your right of way, you are responsible and caused the crash.
After saying all that, I have found one place in Fredericton that this rule does not apply. The Smythe Street Mall has an intersection beside ‘Winners’ that has a stop sign for those vehicles that have exited Prospect Street and have come down to the parking area. There is no stop sign for vehicles going either way in front of the Mall or coming from the back of the Mall. Those with the stop sign must yield the right of way to vehicles coming from the back of the mall and those vehicles making a left turn from in front of the Mall going towards the back. Because they do not have a stop sign, they have the right of way over those at the stop sign. Please, use caution at that intersection.
