"Blocking the Box" — Enforcement (or lack thereof) in DC

As a tag-on issue, when I’m on a bike on a street perpendicular to one where the cars are box blocking, I can slip through between the stopped cars to continue on my way. Of course, sometimes traffic starts moving on that perpendicular street, and now you have an issue of who should go – the scofflaw box blocker, or the slipping through cyclist. I used to find that most scofflaw box-blockers were a little embarrassed by their scofflaw-ness, and would look around before moving their multi-ton box of steel, and sheepishly wave at those of us on two wheels as we slipped by them, sometimes delaying them for a few seconds from moving a few feet. Recently, I’ve found that scofflaw box-blockers feel entitled to move forward as soon as they can, not even looking for cyclists slipping through, pedestrians legally crossing in the crosswalk, etc. I had one guy barely look up when easing up on the brake while I was in front of him. I yelled, he looked, and then acted like I was doing something wrong.

I agree that it’s gotten worse recently. I wish MPD would do something to deal with this. Enforcement, better light timing, something.

In my experience, many drivers don’t even understand the concept, or that it is illegal. They think their job is to follow the car in front of them unless a light is red. The idea of waiting to go through the intersection until there is room to clear it never occurs to them.

@mstone 48075 wrote:

Last week (in the car) a truck repeatedly honked at me because I wouldn’t enter an intersection to make a left turn in the face of oncoming traffic and a pedestrian in the cross walk on the left. (At the really really long crosswalk at glebe & wilson, where there’s a dedicated left turn signal at the top of the cycle.) Jerk.

This is a different situation, and it seems to be regional. (It’s also been discussed in the forum but not sure the thread). In some places, the law for left turning vehicles is such that if the car is in the box when the light turns yellow, that car can turn left as soon as it’s clear. Where I learned to drive (Charlotte, NC), you were supposed to enter the intersection and wait in the box to turn left. If pedestrians or oncoming traffic made it so you couldn’t turn left with the green, you could legally turn left on the red. Light cycles there were timed for this — at places where lots of cars would be “caught” in the box turning left, there was a period where everybody had red, to let the left turns clear. So a driver stopped at the stop line would be the jerk. It wasn’t until someone explained to me that there were places in the U.S. where you aren’t supposed to enter to turn left like this that I realized that some of those who stop like you did were not just being a**hats.

I looked it up than, but I’ve forgotten what the law is here. Regardless, this is not the same as blocking the box, because you’re not impeding the traffic traveling perpendicular to you.

@dasgeh 48087 wrote:

Regardless, this is not the same as blocking the box, because you’re not impeding the traffic traveling perpendicular to you.

You are if you can’t clear the intersection when the light changes. That’s the point–if there’s nowhere to go, don’t enter the intersection at all. The whole “well, I’d never get a chance to turn otherwise” argument is bogus, because there’s a dedicated left turn cycle for the left turn lane. Drivers act so entitled.

@mstone 48092 wrote:

You are if you can’t clear the intersection when the light changes. That’s the point–if there’s nowhere to go, don’t enter the intersection at all. The whole “well, I’d never get a chance to turn otherwise” argument is bogus, because there’s a dedicated left turn cycle for the left turn lane. Drivers act so entitled.

This is only true if the traffic is backed up on the road you’re turning left onto. You’re example was of pedestrians using the crosswalk. They will clear (if they’re following the light) by the time the light turns red.

Seriously, in some parts of the country, it’s legal to do this, and city planners take into account that people do this when timing lights. For example, there’s an intersection in Charlotte where lots of people turn left from going N on one street to go W on another street. But lots of people also want to go S on the first street. So the light is timed so that X cars can get through the light with the dedicated left turn, then at least 3 more cars will be able to turn left on the yellow/red. There is even time in the cycle where everyone has red to allow those making the left turn to clear. It really is what drivers are supposed to do. The drivers who sit at the stop line and don’t enter to the intersection to turn during that everyone-has-red time are the ones screwing it up for others. This is not one of those “I’m entitled to drive as fast as I can, speed limit be damned”.

Here the problem is that some people think that the rules and customs are X and others think it’s Y. Unfortunately, if you don’t realize that others come from a different understanding, you think they’re just being jerks. (And incessant honking is jerky regardless). So honker guy that you were a jerk, you thought he was a jerk.

Still, this is not the same as blocking the box.

So it seems like everyone is confused on this point, at least in VA. The law seems to be: § 46.2-833. Traffic lights; penalty. , which, as I read it, allows drivers to pull into an intersection and wait to turn on green and doesn’t make (real) blocking the box illegal. I don’t know what they teach in VA.

Personally, I think traffic laws are best when they allow people to move around how they choose (1) safely and (2) efficiently. Where a right turn on red can be done safely (i.e. good sight lines, usage that’s more cars than people/bikes), I think it’s good for efficiency. But I think the penalties for acting unsafely should be higher and enforcement should be higher – e.g. if you cut off a pedestrian, there should be a hefty fine. Safety first, but efficiency is important too.

Box blocking is inefficient and inherently unsafe. Left-turn-after-red (assuming the street you’re turning on to is clear, so you’re not box blocking), is efficient and can be done safely.

@dasgeh 48102 wrote:

Personally, I think traffic laws are best when they allow people to move around how they choose (1) safely and (2) efficiently. Where a right turn on red can be done safely (i.e. good sight lines, usage that’s more cars than people/bikes), I think it’s good for efficiency. But I think the penalties for acting unsafely should be higher and enforcement should be higher – e.g. if you cut off a pedestrian, there should be a hefty fine. Safety first, but efficiency is important too.

Box blocking is inefficient and inherently unsafe. Left-turn-after-red (assuming the street you’re turning on to is clear, so you’re not box blocking), is efficient and can be done safely.

I tend to disagree on these points. Sure, I think right-on-red or left-just-after-red CAN be safe, but they are still relatively complicated maneuvers involving a lot of variables that don’t come into play otherwise (turning through crosswalks, for instance). So I favor limiting these maneuvers, as their marginal potential for increased efficiency is offset by their increased complexity, which raises the likelihood of a bad outcome. Reducing complexity, to me, seems a more important goal than increasing efficiency, although I think the latter is usually a byproduct of the former, but not necessarily the other way around.

@TwoWheelsDC 48104 wrote:

as their marginal potential for increased efficiency is offset by their increased complexity, which raises the likelihood of a bad outcome.

I can see your point more with right-on-red than with left-just-after-red. With the latter, once the driver is turning (after red) the pedestrians should have red as well, so it’s safer. With right-on-red, the car in question has to cross a crosswalk where peds would legally be crossing. But I still see places where it makes sense to allow it (again, amount of foot traffic being an important factor to consider).