Yes, California, It's Okay to Turn Right on Red

We were driving home the other day, and on the way to our house, there's an intersection with two right turn lanes going onto Dublin Blvd. Every once in a while, you'll get someone who's in that outside turn lane that stops at the red light, and doesn't turn until the light turns green, even when there are no oncoming cars. This time, there was such a car at the light, and a long line of cars waiting behind it, ours included.

People started to pull out of that turn lane to move to the lane nearest the curb to bypass the "obstacle." We were like 8 cars behind, but I tapped my horn anyways. The car didn't budge. So I moved to the other lane too, and as we pulled up alongside that car, I noticed the windows were down, so I rolled mine down, and Marc and I simultaneously yelled to the guy, "You can turn!"

I think the other cars before us must have said something already, because the words weren't even halfway out of our mouths before the guy retorted, "NO YOU CAN'T!" to which we replied, "YES YOU CAN!" before turning and driving off.

It all felt a little juvenile, and as Marc noted, quite out of character for me, since I rarely confront anyone about anything. But I was just so tired of people not knowing this rule and being annoying about it. Even I have my limits, silly as this one was. I mean, I clearly understand why it's confusing to people, but they need to know.

We did have a discussion afterwards as to whether or not we were actually in the right, which I was pretty sure we were. The traffic light at that intersection doesn't have red arrows, and there's no signage that prohibits such a turn. Contrast that with another intersection in Dublin, where there is a sign that specifically states, "Right turn on red from right lane only." The traffic light there also has a red arrow. If they make signs specifically prohibiting an action at some intersections but not at others, then the assumption is that said action is permissible at the intersections without signage. Like U-turns.

It's not a point that's specifically addressed in the California Driver Handbook (by the way, why is it "Driver" and not "Driver's?" Same thing with licenses - why is it a Driver License? There is some component of the English language that I'm not getting here). I ended up Googling it and finding the above link as well as others, including one where a cop addresses that exact issue and says that it's legal.

Well, that was way more than I had planned to write about that (isn't it always), but there you go.

We went and bought fireworks last night for the 4th. Spent way too much money, literally, as they ended up overcharging us. As they were totalling up our purchases, Marc threw out a guess, which he always does, the nerd, and their total ended up being considerably more than that. Marc was shocked, but we paid, and left. When we got home, he immediately started totalling up everything on the receipt, and it added up to, well, pretty much what he'd guessed earlier. Somehow, someone else's earlier purchase had gotten lumped into ours. We went back, and luckily didn't have any trouble getting them to refund us the extra charge.