For the past 50 years, red-blooded Americans have enjoyed a freedom the Founding Fathers hardly dreamed of: the ability to turn right on a red light. But with pedestrian fatalities at a four-decade high, a movement is afoot to change that.
This month, San Francisco supervisors unanimously voiced support for a ban on right-on-red. Last year, the practice was banned in Cambridge, Massachusetts. New York has long barred it, Denver could soon, and Washington DC has taken steps toward a ban. Seattle, meanwhile, has made no-right-on-red the city’s “default” policy at new traffic signals. A growing media chorus agrees it’s time for change.
