Right on Red
Woody Allen once said: "I wouldn't want to live anyplace where the main cultural advantage is that you can make a right on red." This was a joke, because at the time, New York City was the only city in the US which banned the practice.

Right on red has been illegal in Montreal. Last year, the Quebec government permitted some areas to go right on red, but the island of Montreal remains a no-right-on-red zone.
(An article on the subject is here). Apparently, there's the perception that right-on-red poses a threat to pedestrians and bikers, because drivers would just plow them down in the sidewalks. That's very different from what I remember in California, where pedestrian is King (for example, if a pedestrian crossing between two corners without a traffic light is struck by a car, it's the driver's fault, automatically).

So far, I've been able to restrain myself from making a right on red. I don't mind it so much, but it seems silly -- an anachronistic restriction based on perceived, but non-existent, danger. I will pull to the stop-light, and start tapping my wheel, waiting, slightly annoyed -- like a muzzle has been slipped on after learning my internalized driving reactions in elsewhere. Even more annoying, however, is the fact that many signals first have a green arrow pointing straight -- so that even when the light changes, at first, you can only go forward, again, to give pedestrians opportunity to cross. What's annoying about this is that it assumes that without the light, pedestrians don't have the right-of-way, and they do! But if there are no pedestrians there, I sit, I wait.

On the other hand, I ate poutine at three new places last month. After I eat one more at LaFluer, I'll be ready for the poutine review.
- posted by Unknown @ 4/13/2004 05:12:00 AM