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Master_Dogs t1_ival3pw wrote

Reply to comment by berlage1856 in Cambridge City Council to consider citywide ban on ‘turning on red’ by superfakesuperfake

Wikipedia supports this claim with a few sources in this section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_on_red#North_America

Of course we did this at the expense of pedestrian and cyclist safety, as the same Wikipedia page has some sources for significant increases in motor vehicle crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists after adoption of right turn on red: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_on_red#Pedestrian_and_bicyclist_safety

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coweatman t1_ivff54n wrote

how is it less safe if you, y'know, look to see if you're going to hit anyone?

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Master_Dogs t1_ivfhsnp wrote

One of the studies covers this:

> Although RTOR laws require the motorist both to stop and to yield to any pedestrian or approaching vehicle in the intersection before turning on red, it had been postulated that pedestrians and bicyclists might be at increased risk under Western RTOR because of the inherent attention conflict for the turning driver. In particular, since the driver preparing for a RTOR is typically watching for traffic from his left, he may not see a pedestrian or bicyclist coming from his right.

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jeffbyrnes t1_iwdlcl1 wrote

This very thing happened to me this past weekend on Cedar St walking up to Highland Ave.

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coweatman t1_ivltwt9 wrote

there are a bunch of intersections I can think of off the top of my head where the light is long and the sightlines from where you're sitting at the red light are excellent. you have time to look and see if anyone is coming from any given direction, assuming you haven't lost your rearview and sideview mirrors.

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