The Complex Magic Of The ‘Michigan Left’ And Australia’s ‘Hook Turn’

Normally, navigating through the road network is a straightforward task. If you want to turn onto a street to your left, you go left. To the right, you go right. And yet, in some strange and unique cases, the opposite may be true! Is it a grand scheme to confuse you, or a valid method of traffic management?

Today, we will examine examples from the United States and abroad where this is the case. Places where you jink left to go right, or turn right to go left. It’s counter-intuitive to say the least, and can be downright confusing or dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.

It might sound maddening, but traffic engineers are not just trying to be funny, and do this for a reason. Let’s get to know the Melbourne Hook Turn and the Michigan Left.

The Michigan Left

Having compared verbal notes on hook turns and Michigan Lefts, I figured these were the same thing. As it turns out, that’s absolutely not the case. They are a special way to go left by going right, but their use case is entirely different.

Michigan lefts are used where a minor road crosses a major divided roadway, like a big highway. In countries that drive on the right, a right turn is no problem. It’s easy enough for cars turning right to join the traffic flow. However, in many cases, it’s desirable to prohibit  left turns on to—and off of—the divided highway. It can cause problems as drivers turning left try to cross multiple lanes of high-speed traffic.

The Michigan left gets around this quite simply. Drivers entering the highway from the smaller road may simply turn right. If they wish to continue right, no problem. If they wish to go left, though, they are instead provided with a dedicated U-turn lane in the center of the divided highway. Thus, if you want to go left on to the highway, you first go right, and then grab the immediate opportunity to do a U-turn. A driver turning left traces the shape of a P, so Michigan lefts are sometimes called P-turns.

The same pathing is normally used for drivers on the divided highway, too. They are usually not allowed to turn left on to the smaller road. Instead, they’re directed to overshoot the intersection, take the U-turn lane, and then turn right to gain access to the smaller road.

In research from the Federal Highway Administration, the Michigan Left is credited with creating fewer collisions and smoother traffic flow, by virtue of a reduction in traffic light phases. However, they can be frustrating for motorists, as they force a driver to travel a significant distance to get pointed in the direction they desire to travel. Where there is a lot of left-turn traffic, the U-turn lane can also get deeply clogged.

Michigan Lefts aren’t just limited to Michigan, despite the name. They’ve been installed all over the US where crossroads and highways intersect.

They’re used in Melbourne in certain contexts, where they’re called P-turns, and in Brazil, Angola, and Canada, too, along with many other countries besides.

Melbourne uses P-turns too. However, since Australians drive on the left, they’re used in the opposite direction—i.e. for right turns, not left turns. 

The Hook Turn

The Hook Turn is a useful invention that greatly aids traffic flow in inner-city intersections. It’s best known for its use in Melbourne, Australia, where it lives on to this day.

So how does a hook turn work? Let’s use a diagram, and remember that Australians drive on the left (the opposite of the US). Thus, when making a right turn at an intersection, you must turn across oncoming traffic.

To do a hook turn, instead of turning right from the right lane, you instead approach from the leftmost lane when lights are green. As you enter the intersection, you pull over to the left side and wait. Drivers that are travelling straight to continue passing through the intersection, while you wait over on the left. Eventually, the lights will change. As lights go green on the road to your right, you can then turn on to that road and continue your journey.

The hook turn remains supremely valuable in Melbourne. This is because there are a lot of tram tracks criss-crossing the city streets. If drivers were making right turns from the right lane, the trams would continually be held up. Every time a driver turning right was waiting for a gap in opposing traffic, the trams would be stuck.

The hook turn was actually the standard way of making a right turn in Australia, once upon a time. However, most states eventually abandoned the practice. Instead, they switched to the more common method of having drivers make their right turns from the innermost lane of the intersection.

Melbourne was the primary holdout, and only for select intersections in inner-city areas—in order to make way for the trams. Research from Monash University suggests trams save 11.25 to 15.64 seconds at each intersection where hook turns are used.

However, there are other cases where hook turns are valid. Cyclists may make hook turns by waiting off to the left in an intersection before they turn to the right as the lights change. South Australian buses also use hook turns at the North Terrace/King William Road intersection to avoid holding up through traffic. Canada, Denmark, and the UK also allow hook turns for cyclists in certain contexts. In the latter case, they are known as “two stage turns.”

Hook turns are widely touted as a Melbourne curio, and used to scare drivers who are nervous about driving in downtown areas. However, they’re generally easy to execute. Road markings indicate the proper waiting area for drivers turning right. One merely needs to enter the intersection, hold until the lights change, and then smoothly execute the right turn as the intersection is empty.

Ultimately, these oddball turns serve a useful purpose. They help keep roads flowing nicely, and avoid frustrating conflicts between traffic flowing in opposing directions.

They can be tricky to learn, particularly if you’re encountering them for the first time at ground level. However, when you’re armed with a proper understanding of where you’re supposed to go, they’re an absolute cinch. Study up, observe the locals, and you’ll be hook turning and Michigan lefting (?) with the best of them!

Image credits: Lewin Day, Out&About with Dayv via YouTube screenshot, diagrams modified from Nandhp, CC BY-SA 3.0, State of Michigan, VicRoads screenshot (YouTube)