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)
I don’t live in Michigan but that Michigan left is how I make a left on a couple of intersections nearby where the left turn lane always back up with so many cars that it takes multiple lights to get through.
Here we have one road that was designed as a major arterial connecting downtown with the harbor tunnel that was new in 1958, close to 20 years before the Interstate was completed. Since there isn’t a straight freeway from downtown to the tunnel – the arterial is the hypotenuse of a triangle formed by two freeway segments – it’s still the fastest and most direct route.
The two intersections closest to downtown had hook turns, where all turning traffic would flow to the right, with the left turning traffic then turning toward a secondary light ahead of the waiting cross traffic, and would flow from there when the signal changes. Traffic on the cross streets would turn from a conventional left turn lane into another holding area with another secondary signal, which would allow that traffic to flow ahead of the arterial cross traffic at the signal change.
One of these was eliminated about 20 years ago; the other remains in use. It seems to work well, although I could see issues if there was insufficient space to hold the turning traffic It does take up more space, but this area was converted to a mix of auto-dependent flex and roadside retail along with barrack-style public housing during the heyday of postwar urban renewal, when ripping out a historically Black neighborhood and shoving remaining residents into less visible housing enclaves with limited pedestrian access was a feature, not a bug.
I don’t know if it is still the case, but when I was in Moscow in 1990, left turns were illegal but U-turns were fine. And since this was still in the communist era, there were few cars on the roads, just buses and trucks and wide boulevards.
A line of buses and trucks would make a right turn, and then line up side by side in the middle of the road all doing U-turns.
Where I live (Hobart, Tasmania) we have just adopted “Hook Turns” for bicycles traveling through the inner city of Hobart. The streets are typically 3 or 4 lanes wide with a separate bicycle lane on the left-hand side. If you need to turn right you now make your move with the hook turn. This is much safer than trying to merge 3 or 4 lanes over dodging trucks and buses etc.
My only reservation with these hook turns is with the actual skill of both riders and drivers in the area. Tasmanian drivers have a well-earned reputation for being terrible at indicating, merging and knowing how to use a roundabout correctly. Plus a significant portion of inner-city bike riders here are drunk tourists on electric scooters for hire.
I hope my concerns are all for nothing and that I’m wrong
I thought the whole popularity of utes was that they made it easy to collect road kill. That you may or may not have been the cause of…
The hook turn just seems like it has too many ways to fail. A red light runner and you’re slammed. Too many cars wanting to turn left and the intersection is backed up. Not that these aren’t problems in other conditions and configurations, I just don’t get how this is better or solves them at all.
you’re not really any more likely than normal to get done by a red light runner because you’re going on the perpendicular green like a normal car, and honestly i feel like its maybe easier to spot one because youd see it in your mirror. You’re correct that it can back up an intersection but it’s not really bothered that it makes it worse to drive in the city when it exists to make public transport run better at the cost of cars driving in the city anyways.
The Michigan left should not exist, a roundabout would get the job done better. Michigan is also the home to the left turn arrow at a regular intersection that happens at the end of the light cycle and not at the beginning, the reverse of just about everywhere else. Then there’s Torino, Italy, home to the roundabout with an intersection in the middle of it, which allows a left hand turn, and contains 5 traffic lights. Utter madness. https://maps.app.goo.gl/pDQe3poS73oEbrxd6
The left turn arrow is sometimes at the beginning of the cycle and sometimes at the end of the cycle, depends upon where at in Michigan you are. Oakland county does it one way, Wayne county does it the opposite.
Even within Wayne county, a few cities have left at beginning of cycle (Taylor) and others have left after cycle (Dearborn).
I live in Oakland and work in Macomb. This is infuriating.
I have to disagree – roundabouts would be a huge impediment to traffic flow on high-speed divided highways.
Agreed Lewin. Traffic Engineer here – roundabouts while elegant in their simplicity, they do have an upper limit of vehicle movements per hour, after which they become increasingly less efficient. Once this point has been met (or exceeded) the relevant road authority start investigating design solutions to overcome this – usually a signalised intersection.
Roundabouts also have a problem of reduced efficiency when they are on major commuting routes, so have very different volumes of traffic flow in the various directions of approach. There are a few big roundabouts in Melbourne that have had lights added to help them function more efficiently at high volume peak hour times – some have since been replaced with intersections when that became ineffective.
100%. There’s also a roundabout in Hobart that has had lights added to aid in efficiency as well. I recon had it not held heritage value it would have been removed and a signalised intersection would have replaced it.
Disagree in the Michigan use case, Michigan lefts are already signalized suburban intersections that are not that far apart: often 1/2 mile or less. So not supposed to be high speed. However, the speeding between intersections just serves to stack up the traffic at the lights on the divided portions– or encourages even higher speeds to try and beat the lights. Note also that the left turners also will often have a signal on the exit of the u-turn portion- because you have to cut across 2 lanes of high speed approaching traffic coming out of the u-turn. I suspect if you modeled the current signalized/Michigan left scenario vs a roundabout you would find that the roundabouts calmed the speeds with little to no change in throughput (and probably would improve it).
Slapping a roundabout in the middle of a four-lane highway is a terrible idea, what are you talking about? Roundabouts are best for small roads where all directions have roughly equal traffic. The Michigan Left is for small roads intersecting much larger roads.
The jug handle, which I believe came from New Jersey is essentially an external Michigan Left. To go left you pass through the intersection, turn right on a small loop which then gives you a right turn onto the left bound lane.
Route 1 in RI has/had these things. Worked nice.
The Jersey Jughandle definitely should be included in this conversation. Uniquely interesting from a land-use perspective.
Disgusting
Cats and dogs living together. Drains that vortex in the wrong direction. Countless creatures that can kill you if you just utter their names. Now this? I’m staying off that continent. 😉
Honestly, we’re not that weird or dangerous. Although if you do drive here, the main thing to watch out for is anybody driving a Ford Ranger.
The ‘Hook Turn’ is just a variation on what we often do here in the States, yes, even in Michigan where I live. We do it from the middle lane, though, and all it entails is to pull into the intersection and wait for the red. Once the oncoming traffic stops, you clear the intersection by completing your turn.
Its advantage over the ‘Hook Turn’ is that if the oncoming traffic clears while the light is still green, you can turn then without waiting for the red.
Its disadvantage is that oncoming traffic that wants to turn left also pulls out into the same space, so there’s less room for people waiting to turn left. Another concern is that some people are dicks about stopping for the red light and running the red adds a chance that someone in the intersection will have started their left assuming you would stop. Bang.
In general, the “set up in the intersection” thing has always struck me as a good way to keep things moving, as it takes only tiny amount of time to complete the turn, which is usually before the now green-lit traffic is upon you. But I know some states don’t allow it and insist you wait for the light.
This is the standard pretty much everywhere. The problem in Melbourne, as you should have understood by reading the article, is that there are tram lines running where that right turn lane would typically be located, so the traffic waiting to turn would hold up the local public transit.
In Chicago most people make left turns on vibes.
No Left Turn sign?
Red light?
Do Not Enter sign?
Currently in the right lane?
Currently in the bike lane?
Pedestrians in the crosswalk?
Oncoming bicycles?
Intersection is full?
Not actually a road?
Don’t worry about it. Just turn.
Chicago is Big Altima Energy embodied. The worst driving – in the city, on the highway, wherever- happens in Chicago.
I love the city, I think it is gorgeous and the people are great, the driving is just chaos.
Depends on your definition of “worst driving”. If you define it through self-centered and idiotic maneuvers? Yes, the city wins that award. If you define “worst” as totally oblivious and lacking in any form of logic, then the suburbs would like to take the stage. Finally, if “worst driving” means slow, utterly aggravating and lacking in spatial awareness, then Wisconsin would like to accept the award but they’re too busy waving on all the other traffic and refusing to accept the right-of-way.
Us upper midwesterners politely just say no to the zipper merge. It is simply too rude to all of those that lined up in the free lane two miles before the merge!
The zipper merge happens when the road runs out and the orange cones and blinking arrow tell me to move over.
I have personally done some exceptionally illegal driving in Chicago. Some of it right in front of cops who couldn’t have cared less. In some big cities a different traffic code seems to apply. That being, Do Whatever the Fuck Keeps Traffic Moving (and do it now).
The craziest USA drivers simply must be in Milwaukee. Every time I drive through it I always see multiple people absolutely flying. Like go to jail flying anywhere else. However I have yet to see one pulled over. Which makes sense. The rest of WI? The drivers couldn’t be much nicer or more chill.
Maybe for left turns, I don’t remember, it was the ’70s. But for those years that I lived in Chicago, my impression was that traffic was extremely aggressive, yeah possibly illegal, but very predictable. 80 in a 55 zone, drop to 70 if there’s a parked cop. If you left a space in front of your car on the highway large enough to fit a car into, you were giving permission to pull into it. Most drivers knew the unwritten rules. I figured that people who didn’t follow the rules got beaten to death with tire irons.
There are a couple of Michigan lefts now on US-30 through Indiana… We’re being told that more are currently under consideration. Although they’ll never use them in Carmel – home of the most roundabouts in the country.
Can you do an article explaining the flashing green lights of Vancouver, BC? I asked my friends that live there and they don’t even know why it’s a thing.
Love to know more context! Hit me at lewin@TheAutopian.com, particularly if you can provide photos or videos!
Sorry no handy pictures, but South Grandville in Vancouver is probably the poster child. Every intersection is something like 20 metres apart and has these lights. It can feel like a Christmas parade.
There’s an intersection near my house that has blinking yellows for no discernable reason. It’s one-way so it’s not as if it’s an unprotected turn to either left or right. So it’s L yellow blinking, through green, through green, R yellow blinking. Why?? Through traffic is already green. Just be green. Why?
The first time I saw it I legitimately thought they were doing signal work and slowed down looking for work trucks.
I think I get it, and honestly every intersection should be this way.
Through gets solid green because they have uninterrupted right of way.
Right and left can go, but need to yield to pedestrians. Therefore flashing yellow indicates proceed with caution rather than simply go.
I can chime in here…
These things would often confound people from eastern Canada, me included. In Ontario, in particular, a flashing green indicates what’s called an advanced green. It signals to drivers they have the right of way to turn left and others on their side can proceed directly through, usually at the start of a light cycle, but sometime at the end. I think these have been pretty much phased out (pun intended) and replaced by arrows.
In Vancouver they indicate a safe to proceed straight or turn if clear, but be cautious because at anytime a pedestrian might use a signal box and take priority of the intersection. i.e., they push to indicate their intention to cross and the light will change immediately for them without a count down. It’s kind of like an alternate pedestrian crosswalk, but often at every intersection.
I really like the pedestrian first concept, but as an old timer from the east, I have had my close calls thinking a left turn was clear for me when driving in Vancouver.
Standards. Hah!
My friends in Vancouver, BC told me it was for pedestrian controlled intersections. If a pedestrian presses the crosswalk button, the light will immediately sequence, unlike most intersections where pressing the crosswalk button just puts in a request to cross.
Was in Shanghai China recently, they have left turns from the right side of the road!
This actually makes a lot of sense. See, they have a ton of scooter and bike traffic that use dedicated lanes parallel to the main road. When they pull all the left hand cars to the right and have them turn from there, the cars and the scooters/bikes are coming and going from the same point parallel to each other rather than coming closer together mid turn. It also allows for diagonal movement for bikes and scooters. Of course, being China, they are not consistent and they also have “normal” left turn lanes which makes things confusing.
China also does some weird pre-turn stuff, where there is a left turn lane has an extended staging section before they get a green arrow. It allows for 3 or 4 extra cars into the left turn lane, presumably to prevent a backup for regular traffic flow.
Yes I encountered one in Shanghai last week, and confused my fellow passengers by shouting ‘this is just like Melbourne!’
ooo now do these:
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.5630937,-83.1577263,16.67z?entry=ttu
Bonus points for selecting Big Beaver road. And the exit number from I-75 is?
Pretty sure you already know the exit number. FWIW Mercedes wrote about the fire that closed it a while back and included “you can’t make this stuff up”. My wife asked me why it was named “Big Beaver” my response had to do with the historical prevalence of beaver, like what did you THINK it was named after???
We just got our first diverging diamond intersection here in the Tulsa area. When I heard the description, I thought it sounded pants on head crazy.
Then I drove through one in Kansas City. It was SO EASY! The one here has relieved the congestion in the intersection immensely.
Therefore, while these left turn methods seem pretty wacky to me, I’m gonna reserve judgement until I see one in real life.
Diverging diamonds are being installed all over Colorado, and each time we have someone visit us they complain about how strange it is (as though I have some power to change it retroactively). What they never complain about is how smooth it works and how there is never traffic caught in the middle of the intersection blocking opposing traffic because the sequencing allows it to empty out without folks being in harms way or people trying to beat the light and creating traffic accidents.
for the DD near me, they can’t get the lights at each end timed correctly. unless you are one of the first couple cars through the first light, you don’t make the second light. arrrhh!
Don’t forget the Jersey Jughandle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jughandle
I know people who’ll pay good money for a good Jersey Jughandle.
I thought that was a Rusty Venture.
What the heck is wrong with you people? How is any of this a good idea?!
I think the article did a pretty good job of explaining why it’s a good idea.
I get why preventing left turns can be good, but these solutions seem so bizarre and unintuitive to me.
Because the hook turn priorities trams rather than cars. In Melbourne trams are free in the CBD so one car doesn’t hold up 80 passengers.
I drove to Michigan last year and faced something that I was completely unfamiliar with but wasn’t the Michigan left cited here. I was sitting in a left turn only lane at a traffic light on what is generally a busy road. The light turned green, but I didn’t get a green arrow, only a flashing red arrow instead. I honestly had no idea what that light meant. Thankfully it was later at night and the road was fairly empty, so I carefully edged out and made a left (there was no oncoming traffic). When I got back to PA, I looked it up and apparently did exactly what that light was indicating (make a left only if it’s clear). Honestly had never seen that before in almost 40 years of east coast driving – it’s not a thing around here as far as I know, but apparently is elsewhere (?)
That’s odd. I live in MI, but anywhere I’ve encountered that situation its been a flashing yellow arrow, not a red arrow.
Flashing yellow should be a left-specific version of a flashing yellow at an intersection — you may proceed (left) without stopping, with caution because of possible opposing traffic.
Flashing red should be a left-specific version of a flashing red at an intersection — you must stop before proceeding (left) when clear.
I see this occasionally in the mid-Atlantic region, esp. in MD in more rural areas. I like it, and like you say, once you get it (and what it means with respect to oncoming traffic), it gets ingrained in your brain pretty fast – come to a stop and then turn if clear.
In my experience, drivers treat flashing red the exact same as flashing yellow. As others have commented, flashing yellow is yield, flashing red is stop and go when safe. At some lights with short left turn cycles, you’ll probably get rear ended if you stop on red when there’s no oncoming traffic. I’m sure this varies locally and even by time of day.
The Michigan Left seems like a great way to lower accidents from left turns and increase them from U-turns.
Anyway, these are nothing. Google Map to see some real craziness-
I-90 & Elmhurst Road- Double Diverging Diamond Interchange! Loads of fun.
Randall & Algonquin Roads- Triple Left Turn Lanes! If two are good, three are better!
near me is a triple left into a diverging diamond. sounds like a figure skating routine.
OK that’s nuts. One weird thing at a time!
I just started encountering a couple of diverging diamonds… looking at them from a map its a bit unintuitive but from the drivers seat there was never a question of what to do and when, and traffic seemed to be flowing more smoothly than before
A Michigan left is often synced with a light, either at the location or with one close by before traffic would get to the location. You might have to wait a little bit but usually it doesn’t take that long for there to be a clear opportunity to make your turn.
This is a fun read, but I live in a state where most drivers can’t even figure out how to use a traffic circle and they complain about Michigan lefts on busy multi-lane roads because of all the “extra turns.” Instead they demand traffic signals at every intersection, thereby bringing rush hour to a standstill. We should all just drive bumper cars.
Circles are DEATH where I live. Guaranteed they stop and stare at it.
What’s hard about a traffic circle? You just close your eyes and floor it straight through over the concrete median in the center
That, or treat it as a 4 way stop. Those seem to be the only two methods I’ve observed
I always chuckle at the roundabouts with such low curbs you could drive straight in a slammed Civic at 90mph and suffer no damage so of course all these massive SUVs wouldn’t even notice.
Just yesterday I encountered an intersection that had a circle and stop signs at each entrance. Still trying to figure out the point of that one.
There is no point. It’s a circle!
I have a fond memory of riding in the back of my friend’s dad’s Jeep Wrangler as a kid right after our city got its first traffic circle. I was probably around 10. As we approached the circle, he declared “this is how Jeep guys do it,” and, completely disregarding all other traffic, drove right over the middle of it, curbs, foliage, and all. It was awesome to me when I was 10. And still kind of awesome in retrospect now that I’m 38.
It’s pretty clear what a circle means:
– I’m going straight and it doesn’t apply to me, drive straight through and over the roundabout, or
– Lovecraftian four-tentacled horror to be slowly regarded with an averted gaze, hoping that by not looking at it it will just go away and I’ll be able to drive again some day
I exaggerate, some folks are starting to get the hang of them, but I could pick up my bike with my butt cheeks I’m on such high alert when I go through them. Brodozers in particular seem fond of the “these are not rules for me” interpretation.
Yeah, I learned to drive 50-plus years ago in a state where rotaries are common, so the rules/etiquette were ingrained early. Most recently, I’ve lived in a state where these largely didn’t exist until several years ago and people freaked when they appeared. They are beginning to adapt. Of course, this is also a state where nobody seems to be able to figure out highway alternate merge lanes without coming to a complete stop, swearing, fender benders, or the worst, some ass straddling both lanes to prevent anyone from getting by.
Having spent a large part of my life in Michigan, I like the Michigan left, it allows more cars to que up and make the turn easier. It can be confusing for people who aren’t familiar with it. Each state has some of their own unique driving features. Being on the west coast now, the quirk of making u-turns at intersections is weird and took time to get used of.
I was in MI last week on vacation. The “Michigan Left” is a thing, and it’s total BS.
Ha. In Mexico you have to get to the far right lane to turn left across 5 lanes of traffic. It’s insane.
Everything needs onramps. That’s it…just not cloverleaf.
Full flyover spaghetti bowls everywhere!
Yaaassss….I mean, who needs space for housing?
Who wanted housing next to highways?
It’s convenient…
For increased asthma and cancer, sure.