This morning I woke up as usual. As in, I was running late. Nonetheless, after rushing to get ready,  I was looking forward to the school day as I turned off of Fifth Ave. and onto Amberson. I glanced at the dashboard, and my efforts appeared to have been enough based on the 8:08 displayed. It looked like I was going to make it just in time. However, because of traffic, I did in fact not make it to school on time today. More specifically, this was traffic caused not by an excess of vehicles on the road, but because of backups created by left turns. Were left turns eliminated or at least restricted, the traffic would’ve been avoided. 

When I complained about the traffic, my mom responded with “Well, you should’ve taken it into account and woken up earlier.” Most people would agree with her, that it was my fault that I was late for school. After all, traffic is a normal part of a morning commute. However, when one really thinks about it, the question of why we accept traffic as a fact of life is not as straightforward as one may think. Surely our system could be improved to minimize one of the most common inconveniences. This is not an issue unique to my morning drive to school; everyone who has ever driven has experienced traffic caused by a car waiting to turn left.

Some skeptics may be wondering, “are left turns really that bad?” to which the answer is, absolutely. Ignoring the question of whether or not left turns reduce traffic flow for now (they do), left turns are a safety hazard. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that around 22% of all crashes reported involved a vehicle turning left, more than any other maneuver.  This should make sense to anyone who has ever driven before: left turns require the driver to make a judgment call of when to cut across oncoming traffic, and people make mistakes often. It is why protected left turns exist; they take the choice of when to turn out of the driver’s hands. However, this creates another problem: traffic. While protected left turns, or green arrows, are very helpful for drivers turning left, it is a traffic phase entirely dedicated to left turns, meaning no other traffic may progress at that time. It may make turning left safer, but at the cost of greatly slowing traffic flow.

I’m sure some of you are wondering what on earth you’re supposed to do if you want to make a left turn. “Are you really supposed to take three rights?” And while it is true that in some cases, this might make some destinations further and some trips take longer, this is only true when viewed from an individual’s viewpoint. If removing left turns is viewed from a perspective of making your current trip as fast as possible, it is true that limiting left turns would have an adverse effect. However, it is important to not consider a traffic policy from just a single person’s standpoint. 

For example, if red lights were viewed from an individual’s perspective, if the goal was to make your current trip as fast as possible, you would run every red light. We stop at red lights not because it helps us in that specific moment, but because it is more beneficial on average for everyone if everyone stops at red lights. The reason that our current traffic system works is because it is considered from a perspective of what is best for everyone, not at a given moment, but in the long run. This can be applied to left turns as well. While it may appear more beneficial if you turn left at a given intersection, it is in fact better in the long run if left turns were eliminated entirely due to the increased traffic flow. Trips would be safer, faster, and simply better if left turns were eliminated. 

This is not just a novel theoretical idea; left turns are already restricted in many places, even if we do not see it as such. On highways, clover-leafs are everywhere as a way of avoiding vehicles cutting across lanes where oncoming vehicles are approaching at 50+ mph, which most drivers (I hope!) can see would be incredibly dangerous. Cities such as San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Wilmington have also already implemented left turn restrictions at busy city intersections, which is already enough to improve traffic flow and safety significantly.

Removing left turns is not even a particularly challenging task, especially when compared to other proposed changes to the transportation system, such as public transit or bike lanes. These system-wide solutions would go much further than removing left turns ever could, creating a far better environment for a variety of transportation modes, from pedestrians to bikers to subways and buses. However, they require massive investment and commitment, both of time and money, to be implemented correctly. When compared to ditching left turns, which requires no new infrastructure (apart from a couple of signs) and no significant investment, there is an enormous difference in the immediate impact of these solutions. This is not to say that removing left turns can serve as a replacement for these greater reforms, but rather that abandoning left turns can work in tandem with them.

So if removing left turns, a nearly universal issue, would make drivers safer, reduce traffic, improve trip times, and reduce pedestrian fatalities all at virtually no cost, why aren’t they gone already? Or rather, if removing left turns is so great, why do people still see them as a fact of life? While my being late this morning might have been partially my fault, there is also something to be said about the inefficiency of our current system. We should always actively strive to improve our transportation network, and leaving left turns behind is one of the simplest ways to immediately improve it.