Contrariwise, though, if you don’t clear the intersection before the light turns red in NYS, that’s a violation. (California, e.g., is different in this regard; so long as you enter the intersection on yellow you’re okay and free to clear the intersection at some later point. Not so in NY.)
The cops still behaved poorly. By all appearances, their driving was far sketchier, leaving the issue of verbally threatening the driver later on aside.
Also, some traffic lights in NYC can show a red light to e.g. northbound traffic while southbound still has a green. You can’t assume complete parallel synchronization. I don’t know this intersection well but I could swing by some time and report more fully.
So, it is conceivable that the undercover cops did have a green even though from the driver’s perspective they did not seem to. HOWEVER, the flip side of this is that the cops couldn’t have been sure he had a red light either. Not unless they had a colleague also watching from the side of the intersection the driver came from. The ticket would be thrown out if contested for that reason.
p.s.: There are also some NYC-specific parts of the vehicle code that override the statewide code, but nothing applicable to this case.
So are all the lights red? It looks like the traffic coming from the camera car’s right also has a red as does he…as does the cop apparently. I suppose that’s how all traffic lights work and I’m just overthinking/not thinking/not as smart as I pretend to be.
I thought you were agreeing with @Mister44, both because you said “agreed” and from
What do ya know. Two wrongs make a left turn.
My apologies if I misunderstood.
The youtuber, who entered the intersection legally and then turned when the light turned red (and he could be relatively confident oncoming traffic would stop) was not in the wrong. The oncoming traffic, which entered the intersection after the light had turned, was in the wrong.
That doesn’t make sense; what are you supposed to do? (I can’t find a mention of it in the NYS rules of the road.)
This is common most places, but usually it takes the form of the light in one direction turning green after lights both ways are red. And, FWIW, the New York law says that if a car is in the middle of the intersection making a turn, oncoming traffic has to yield to it even if their light turns green:
Traffic, except pedestrians, facing a steady circular green signal may proceed straight through or turn right or left unless a sign at such place prohibits either such turn. Such traffic, including when turning right or left, shall yield the right of way to other traffic lawfully within the intersection or an adjacent crosswalk at the time such signal is exhibited.
In Oregon it is illegal to enter an intersection on yellow. My ex-wife got a ticket for “running a yellow light” because she decided not to slam on the brakes when the light changed to yellow.
We took it to court and were told unequivocally that it is the same as running a red. SMH
There will be a mathematical distance before the line that a car going the legal speed will be unable to stop in time when the light turns yellow (especially factoring in driver reaction time). That distance gets a lot larger in poor conditions like wet, snow or ice.
Relevant part of the vehicle code is NYS VTL 1111. Some snippets:
"(b) Yellow indications:
Traffic, except pedestrians, facing a steady circular yellow signal may enter the intersection; however, said traffic is thereby warned that the related green movement is being terminated or that a red indication will be exhibited immediately thereafter.
…
(d) Red indications:
Traffic, except pedestrians, facing a steady circular red signal, unless to make such other movement as is permitted by other indications shown at the same time, shall stop at a clearly marked stop line, but if none, then shall stop before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection, or in the event there is no crosswalk, at the point nearest the intersecting roadway where the driver has a view of the approaching traffic on the intersecting roadway before entering the intersection and shall remain standing until an indication to proceed is shown except as provided in paragraph two of this subdivision."
It’s not well-drafted, but courts have interpreted that to mean you can be ticketed if you failed to stop at the limit line when your light turned red mid-maneuver. You can similarly get ticketed by red light cameras under similar circumstances.
It’s weird, yeah; it’s certainly a wart in the way the NYS laws work. If you entered the intersection and reasonably thought that you would have time to get through, but then had to wait much longer than expected to make your turn, it’s pretty much a technical violation. If you had a clear red on entering the intersection, this is unambiguously wrong. If you had a chance to stop entering the intersection as it turned yellow, but didn’t take it, that’s somewhere in the middle ground. That’s what I see here. I’d rate what I saw the driver do at a sketchiness level of 2 out of 10; the cops more like 8 out of 10. (Unless there was something funny about the synchronicity of the lights that we didn’t see.)
And other traffic is obliged to yield right-of-way to you while you clear the intersection even if by now you have technically committed a red-light violation, yes.
Pointing this out for kicks: there’s also a countdown timer on the ped light visible over to the far-right corner of the intersection for pedestrians crossing Grand; the driver could possibly have anticipated his light was about to turn yellow by clocking that.
p.s.: Typical intersection behavior in most of the northeast US is for traffic in all directions to get a red for a short interval before traffic in the “new” direction gets a green. I’ve been some other places in the US - Cleveland area, for example – where cross traffic goes green the same instant crossing traffic goes red.
Yeah, I read that part of the code (after all, I linked to it), but don’t see where it says (or even hints) that you need to clear before the light turns red. If the courts have imposed that interpretation then it certainly hasn’t trickled down to driving praxis.
That is complete bullshit! (But good to know, thanks.) Fortunately PPD pulls no one over hardly ever, but given the way drivers here systemically run lights (yet slow down when approaching greens, wtf???) I would have never guessed.
Also in Delaware. If you move into the intersection on yellow, and the light turns red before you get a chance to leave the intersection, you’ve broken the law. Therefore you should wait behind the stop line until there’s an opportunity to turn.
Worse: she was 7-months pregnant with four other kids in her minivan. She had also been told two days before that the bearings in the driver’s side front wheel were defective and had already scheduled an appointment to get it fixed (under a recall notice). So slamming on the brakes would have been a bad choice.
Worser still: the officer was very rude to her and made her cry. One of my kids asked me “Why was the cop so mean to mommy?” I called the police department to review footage of the incident and possibly file a complaint about his behavior, but ultimately decided it wouldn’t be worth it.
In court before the proceedings started the officer said “Are you the one whose husband tried to file a complaint against me? I won’t be negotiating any of the charges.” Then they put us last on the docket, even though we had our newborn (roughly two months old) with us. Power-hungry jerk.
Looks to me like the undercover car enters the intersection when the light is red in all directions. Traffic in the east-west direction gets its green light something like a half-second later.
But without a view from the undercover car’s perspective, we can’t be absolutely sure of that; we’re just inferring. (And interestingly, this is something that cuts both ways! The cops can’t say jack about the status of the light facing the driver unless they actually had eyes on it.)
Hah, whoops. I didn’t click through on your link; I assumed from what the URL looked like that it was gonna be to a page in the driver’s manual rather than the vehicle code itself. (Driver’s manuals, while they will agree in broad outlines with the actual law, are not binding in the same way.)
The driver entering the intersection on yellow was making a judgement call that it was safer to go through than to try to brake hard at that point. I might have decided differently, but it was a legal decision for them to make.
If you actually watch the video, you see the light first turns yellow once the driver is already right up on the crosswalk. He does’t accelerate, he just drifts into the intersection to complete his left turn. It sounds like some of you are saying the driver should have SLAMMED on his brakes the moment the light turned yellow - even though he was already at the intersection - which just doesn’t make any sense. In fact, if another car was behind that guy and he slammed on his brakes the moment the light turned yellow, when he was already at the intersection, there’s a good chance he’d have been rear-ended.
Not sure where y’all learned to drive, but this driver did exactly what I would have done.
The cops, on the other hand, were well back from the intersection when the light turned yellow and should have rolled to a gentle stop, instead of being dicks and jamming the guy that was already in the intersection waiting to turn.
What bothers me about this interaction is the cop seems to think it’s his job to be right and argue, rather than just check the guy’s license and either write him a warning or a ticket or neither. Pretty bald and sleazy attempt to pressure him into admitting wrong (are you really going to not write him a ticket if he admits to turning into the light?) I always feel lucky to live in a place with professional and reasonable local police (and sherrifs) (state police are another matter unfortunately) who don’t feel like its their job to be out to get you no matter what and generally prove their dominance. And I’m pretty lucky to be a white male like them of course. Maybe this guy is too.
Also I don’t think the police were trying to argue about whether they “ran the red” so much as were offended that a regular citizen would have the gall to not stop mid turn and yield to them, but continued to turn in front of them, just like they were themselves mere citizens. (Despite being in an unmarked car…)
(Driver’s manuals, while they will agree in broad outlines with the actual law, are not binding in the same way.)