Motorist Ponders Next Move at a Full Left-Turn Lane

Dear Street Smart:

What is the best way to handle this situation? I want to make a left turn, but the left-turn lane is quite well filled. If I attempt to enter it, my car will block the through lane, stopping an entire lane of traffic. What is the best thing to do?

Lucille Sherman, Tustin

Street Smart commends you for not wanting to hold back the traffic flow, but if you have to do it when trying to enter a left-turn pocket, it’s legal.

“If it’s full, it’s full. She’s right to go ahead and stop until she can get in,” said Bernie Rowe, a Tustin traffic officer.

Your only real alternative would be to give up on the left turn and instead travel straight through the intersection in hopes of making a legal U-turn farther down the street. Perhaps you could even save some time doing that, rather than trying to make the left.

“Chances are, if you are not quite in the lane, you’re not going to make the light,” Rowe said.

There was only one situation where Rowe thought a driver turning left could get in trouble for blocking traffic, and even then it would be a stretch, he said. That’s where a driver is on a busy highway and tries to turn into a driveway or street from a through-traffic lane, rather than from a left-turn pocket. If it’s clear that opposing traffic is continually too heavy to allow a turn, an officer could possibly cite the driver for blocking the lane.

Obviously, what a driver should do depends on the location. For the most part, if you have to block traffic, that’s OK.

By the way, if you find the left-turn pocket at a particular intersection filling easily, let the local traffic engineering department know. That may help get the pocket extended or expanded to two lanes.

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Dear Street Smart:

There are occasionally times when I see situations along freeways and surface streets that should be reported to the proper authorities. I am fortunate enough to have a car phone. However, whom to call at what number is not clear to me, nor do I have a telephone directory at hand.

For example, I recently saw a foursome of older women whose car had stalled on a freeway divider. Getting to a call box would have been treacherous for them. Another time, a large dog had apparently just been hit by a car on a surface street and was dragging himself to the side of the road. How about a signal that suddenly stops functioning?

Is there a general list of numbers I can keep handy in my car for such situations? Do the numbers vary from city to city, county to county?

Doris von Rotz, Fullerton

The numbers you need are easy to remember: 911 and 0.

For emergency situations, obviously call 911. The same is true for quasi-emergencies, such as those stranded women, according to California Highway Patrol spokesman Bruce Lian. The women are in a dangerous location, so the authorities should be alerted.

For non-emergency situations, call the operator and explain the problem. The operator should be able to connect you with the appropriate agency. For example, anything to do with freeways would go to a CHP dispatch center. A city traffic signal that suddenly goes out would go to the city’s police department.

What’s the difference between a quasi-emergency and a non-emergency? That’s up to you to decide. If those women were on the right side of the freeway, that’s probably a non-emergency, since they are in a safer location than if they were along the median. A broken traffic signal could go either way, depending on how busy the intersection is.

When in doubt, call 911 and say you’re not sure if it is an emergency, advised CHP communications operator Marc Shaw. The 911 operator can always move your call to a non-emergency line, Shaw said.

Here’s one other number for you: (714) 567-7187. That’s the CHP non-emergency dispatch number in Orange County, and if you program it into your phone, it can save you from having to go through the operator. As for non-emergencies in cities, the operator (or 411) remains your best bet, since each city has a different non-emergency number to their police departments.