OHTA.ca

Hello,

I am taking my taking my driving test for my G license soon and there was one issue I was wondering about:

Turning left at an intersection.

If you come up to an intersection to turn left on a green light, but there's traffic impeding your ability to do so, would they want you to wait behind the white line, or take control of the intersection?

If the answer is move in and take control of the intersection, I have two questions on that:

1) How far to move in?

2) What do you do if there's no opportunity to turn before the light turns yellow? And even more so, what if cars blow through the yellow and red light and you now cannot turn and are blocking traffic in the opposite direction?

I've read on forums of people failing for moving into the intersection and turning on a yellow, and people failing for waiting behind the white line for impeding traffic.

Thanks!

The correct thing to do is, if you are the first car in line, enter the intersection on the green and wait in a safe place. Theoretically only one vehicle should enter at at time... this isn't practical in real life in a place like Toronto (at least two are in the intersection) but we're talking a driving test here. Once oncoming traffic is stopped, complete the turn.

If you are the second car, that's debatable. I'd play it safe and wait if you're the second car. What often happens is that people are safely stopped and not blocking the crosswalk, the light turns amber and they enter the intersection. That's a fail, because you have to stop before the intersection for the amber if able... and if you're already stopped then there's no excuse. If the light is green and you're the first car in line, they do expect you to enter the intersection to make the turn. Otherwise, if oncoming traffic was heavy, no one would ever be able to turn left.

jongeeboots wrote:1) How far to move in?

2) What do you do if there's no opportunity to turn before the light turns yellow? And even more so, what if cars blow through the yellow and red light and you now cannot turn and are blocking traffic in the opposite direction?

1) It's more important to position your vehicle so that your wheels are straight and you can see past opposing left turning traffic. You can move as far in as you'd like. But you'll have a sharp turning radius if you move too far in.

2) Turn the car even if the light is yellow/red. You have to wait for all oncoming vehicles to come to a complete stop. If you see someone not braking, and planning to blow the red; you have to wait for them. Even though what they're doing is illegal, if you collide... you will be found at-fault and charged for turning left without safety.

Legally as long as you're in the intersection past the white line when the light is green, you can complete the turn whether you're now facing yellow or red. Remember that it's only illegal to enter the intersection against a yellow & red.

It's also important that you complete the turn without blocking cross-traffic, because that's also illegal: http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statut ... .htm#BK250

You're going to get mixed advice on this, but some people believe there should only be one vehicle waiting to turn left inside an intersection at one time. That will mean in some cases one vehicle will be turning left for every single traffic cycle. Practically, that's never going to happen in urban areas. For the test, you can play it safe and just have one vehicle in the intersection at one time.

Here's an interesting video of where you see the corolla driver positioned at the wrong place in the intersection. He places himself such that the opposite left turning traffic will block his view. His wheels/vehicle are turned to the left, so if he were rear-ended he'll be going straight into oncoming traffic.

In this case there is plenty of room in the intersection, for at least for two cars.

When he completes the turn, he makes it illegal by going into the wrong lane. Unfortunately, this is the norm in the Greater Toronto Area.