This video just makes me think of how incredible car safety technology is these days. Being impacted the way the white car was is one of the most notoriously dangerous situations, but their car stays 4-wheels down and it’s clear the door and frame held their integrity and protected the cabin.
I can’t find the infographic I was looking for that shows both of these major data points on one page, but these two together paint a remarkable picture. There were nearly as many total traffic fatalities in 1927 as there are today! It’s just incredible what sensible regulation and innovation can do even with a completely intransigent industry.
ETA: The bottom timeline covers much more, but if you correlate the big drops in fatalities with the upper graphic’s innovation timeline, it’s just stunning.
Can’t tell on my phone, but in the US left turn right of way is contingent on the pattern of the particular light. Most signals in my town, for instance, begin with an unprotected left, but then after the forward lights go red shift to a protected left. So it might be that this had happened, and the car going straight had actually blown a red.
Even more fun (and stupidly dangerous) some intersections that have this pattern also have a sensor in the left turn lane. If the sensor isn’t engaged when the forward lights turn red, then the protected left is skipped. This means if I’m approaching the left turn lane and the car ahead of me in the lane turns just before the light changes, then the sensor is in the gap between us, and suddenly I’m screeching to a halt because my protected left has been taken away.
Also, 95%+ of the lights in town have a trailing left, and the rest have a leading left. I’m sure traffic engineers think they’re making the flow of traffic 0.0002% more efficient, but it is the very definition of the difference between cleverness and wisdom.
For what it’s worth, the white car on the right of the intersection was pointing at the setting/rising sun when they started their turn, as shown in the opening of the clip before the camera car turns to their right towards the intersection. It’s possible that they couldn’t get a good look at the white car that rammed them until too late.
Most intersections in northern* California have fully protected lefts, where you can’t turn left except on a green arrow. It’s so rare here that, after living here a decade, I get honked at for not turning left on solid greens when I’m driving out of state… or in LA. LA still has a bunch of unprotected intersections (I assume to help with congestion) but I think the understanding of how to navigate them has been driven out of the state’s collective consciousness.
*“northern” California means “anything north of LA”
My thought about the dashcam driver backing up was that they wanted to be able to see around the white van, since it’s pretty far forward (without actually being in the intersection, but apparently in the crosswalk).
Personally, I hate not having a good view of an intersection as well, so it my be my bias providing the driver with motive that they didn’t actually have, but that’s how I read the scene.
That was no accident - it was a crash. Somebody caused it. Probably not on purpose, but still not excusable.
(Sorry if I’m touchy on this point but my daughter was injured badly by a drunk driver traveling the wrong way on an interstate highway.)
It seems like the white car that got hit mistakenly thought they had a green arrow (or they did and the car that hit them simply ran a red light). They just don’t seem to be rushing through the intersection.
As for the prescience of the “hero” car? There’s a lot mysterious about them… They have odd taste in music, drive a manual transmission (I suspect), and have a dash cam… This is an individual who cuts their own path!
I don’t know this specific LA intersection, but the general etiquette in LA (at intersections where there is not separate signalization for left turns) is that to make your left turn, move forward into the intersection and get yourself in position to get across fairly quickly. But don’t move yet. Then, when the light for traffic in your direction changes from green to red, up to 3 drivers in each direction who have entered the intersection in order to make left turns should go through and clear the intersection, even when the light has turned green for cross-traffic. (If you’re 4th in line, though, you’re SOL; you just have to wait for the next cycle of the light.)
This actually largely agrees with the way that the CA vehicle code is written. Entering an intersection on green or yellow never adds up to running a red light in CA, even if the light changes while you’re in the intersection. And even crosswise traffic that now has a green light is obliged to let any traffic in the intersection clear before proceeding.
The driver of the white sedan was following this practice when the oncoming straight-through driver (going from left-to-right in the video) ran his red light, hit the front-right corner of his car, and spun the car into the van. A more-defensive driver might have anticipated and jammed on the brakes, so I don’t think the sedan driver was entirely without fault, but given local driving practices I’d apportion no more than 15% of the blame to him. The red-light runner was overwhelmingly at fault, IMO.
I’m still not quite sure how the driver with the dashcam knew to anticipate this mishegos.
(Obviously, you can make a left turn earlier if there’s a suitable gap in straight-through traffic, but given LA traffic levels, and the number of lanes of straight-through traffic you’ll have to yield to on arterials, often there is no gap until the light changes.)
My assumption here is that there is a protected left with a left turn yield on green. This is based on the first car turning left inching out into the intersection and then the stream of cars turning left from either direction. Also the light configuration seems to be two parallel sets of lights that would indicate a signal for left turns.
Here’s the intersection from the left-turning-car’s point of view:
Looks to me like there is a separate left-turn arrow, but not a red left-arrow at the end of westbound traffic’s green cycle. A left turn at the end of the cycle would be fine by usual LA custom.
(The stuff in the video that led me here: the Winchell’s Donuts on the left and the signage for Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Just btw.)
What’ll happen is self-driving cars will figure out successful strategies for avoiding accidents that will be either 1) completely inexplicable or 2) ethically compromised
I generally agree with this, except I’d claim it’s 1-2 cars, not 3. Some folks pull too far into the intersection and actually start to turn the wheels, which is bad news when they get rear-ended.
Also, if there’s gridlock, cars making a left should not enter the intersection until there’s room to complete the turn. In traffic school, we were taught that you have to have a reasonable expectation of clearing the intersection before your light turns red.
I find it interesting that the car that was hit seemed to instantly turn only its hazard lights. Is this a feature of newer cars that they do this when the detect they’ve been hit?
