Look at the stars, look how they shine for you

[venta]

I have long since ceased being surprised by the number of drivers who don't appear to know how yellow boxes work, ie you mustn't stop in them. However, of late I have been surprised by the number of people whom I'd regard as good drivers who don't appear to know how yellow boxes work, ie you may stop in them if you're turning right and are only blocked by oncoming traffic.

In fact, I've been so surprised that I've gone so far as to actually check I'm right, rather than just mouthing off at random.

Paragraph 174 of the Highway Code states:

Box junctions. These have criss-cross yellow lines painted on the road (see 'Road markings'). You MUST NOT enter the box until your exit road or lane is clear. However, you may enter the box and wait when you want to turn right, and are only stopped from doing so by oncoming traffic, or by other vehicles waiting to turn right. At signalled roundabouts you MUST NOT enter the box unless you can cross over it completely without stopping.

So... now I want to know. How many people know this ?

[Poll #1248362]

Comments

[alien8.livejournal.com]

they are nice for cyclists because...
....the exit road or lane is always clear.

(except during a Critical Mass!)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I am a perennial passenger who is taken through such a junction on such a regular basis that I actually looked it up once to find out what the legal position was (not necessarily distrusting the drivers concerned, but curious as to whether the inferred/implied rule was in fact the correct one). :D

[venta.livejournal.com]

Critical Mass

... which presumably involves a lot of rather nitpicky Catholics :)

I couldn't quite work out from the Highway Code whether or not the boxes are meant to apply to cyclists. And the website appears to have gone out of its way to make things hard to find.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

oops

[venta.livejournal.com]

Did you drive when you lived here ? I can't remember...

Actually, yes, because you gave me a lift once. Still, at least if you miss out the turn-right clause you won't be *wrong*, you'll just make life slightly more difficult for yourself :)

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

People not entering a box junction when they are turning right and the right exit is clear drives me spare, because so many of them are so hard to turn on.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Presumably anything which isn't explicitly excepted for cyclists does apply to them (us) (me)?

[alien8.livejournal.com]

nitpicky *laugh*.

Last month 720ish at the London one.

If you're a cyclist that stays in the main traffic flow and acts as a car - yes it absolutely applies.

If you have a cycle lane or can overtake safely - then make safe progress.

the key words here are : safe & progress.

The IAM Advanced motorbike manual has escaped me for the moment and the c*r one is silent on the matter. (except for the safe progress thing)

[j4.livejournal.com]

Why on earth do people think they don't apply to cyclists? Or is this just in the same way as red lights, zebra crossings, the distinction between "road" and "pavement", one-way roads, etc. don't apply to cyclists?

[brrm.livejournal.com]

My office window used to look out on a major box junction (St Giles -> Beaumont St, Oxford), and it used to drive me mad just how many people would beep their horns trying to make the lead car enter the box when it wasn't supposed to.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Your wording options forced me to lie in response to two of the questions, so I will clarify here:

Q2) I knew how yellow boxes worked except for signalled junctions being an exception.

Q3) I mostly ignore yellow boxes. The reason I mostly ignore them is because I judge whether or not I need to leave a space clear based on... whether or not it needs to be left clear. But I will also obey stupidly placed yellow boxes when it isn't actively disruptive to do so. The typical problem being that two sources of traffic are competing for one (congested) destination lane. If you aren't prepared to stop on a yellow box you would literally be parked at the lights for half an hour, because the other source lane will not behave similarly.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I got copiously beeped at on the A5 out of London this morning for not going through a green light. Since there was no space on the other side of the yellow box, I not only stayed on my side of it, I stayed behind the traffic-light line so's not to obstruct the pedestrian crossing. It drove the person behind me mad.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Q2: Note that it's signalled roundabouts not junctions, so the turning right exception won't apply. Therefore it's merely saying "don't stop in a yellow box" - which you shouldn't have to do anyway if your exit is clear.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm also surprised about you Q3 response. You must live in an area of stupidly-placed boxes, since most of the ones I drive over are covering places which should really be left clear.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Well no, when I say I mostly ignore them I don't mean that I mostly fail to comply. For example, there are several places in Staines where the middle of a huge junction has a yellow box on it. If you actually stopped there you'd be blocking several dozen cars and causing huge disruption. So I barely notice the box, because it would never have occurred to me to stop there in the first place!

[keris.livejournal.com]

Q2 - if asked what it meant, I'd have known the don't stop in it bit, and would probably have come up with that there was something different about turning right in them at traffic lights, but wouldn't have got it exactly right! The turning right thing was where I almost failed my test as I only entered it very slowly as I really wasn't sure...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, right. Failure to comply was what I meant by ignoring them, but I realise I didn't make it clear.

[pm215]

"mostly" is because occasionally in slow moving traffic I enter a box junction on the assumption that I'll have enough space to clear it, and sometimes I misjudge it a little. I don't try to defend this as good driving.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

As a cyclist, I feel that if a junction is big enough to need a box junction I should strongly consider getting off and walking around it instead.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

On the rare occasions when I have been on a box junction, I have never had occasion to stop because there is almost always space for a bicycle to go down the side of the cars at the other side of the box. The only time I can think I would have to stop is if there is a giant lorry in the way, when I would stop before the box with the cars that are also doing so, or if somebody does something stupid and I have to stop otherwise they will accidentally kill me, which I think anybody in any vehicle would agree with.

[j4.livejournal.com]

But if your exit is clear, then you are allowed to go into the box junction, according to the rules as stated in the Highway Code. You don't have to invoke some kind of special I'm-a-cyclist-so-the-law-doesn't-matter privileges for that.

I'm assuming that by "down the side of the cars" you mean "in the cycle lane or equivalent" rather than "scooting down a 6-inch gap with one foot on the pavement trying to see how many wing mirrors you can remove".

[j4.livejournal.com]

NB it does only say that you MAY enter the box if your exit is clear, not that you MUST enter the box. ;-)

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

I didn't actually know the exact rules of box junctions before, but I've always used them the way they're supposed do be used intuitively. There just seems to be no other way to right turn (or not) out of such things.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Admittedly I may also have been making life difficult for people behind me too..

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

I was always a little bemused by the need for yellow boxes, even more so now I know the turning right rule.

In Australia you're not meant to enter an intersection if you're not already clear to exit the far side. But then, you're also not meant to have more than one person within the intersection queuing to turn right, and people ignore that one all the time.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

There's a very small one near my house that cyclists go through all the time - walking around it would be nonsense. It's there because turning right into Small-ishRoad from BigRoad (edit: or from Small-ishRoad into BigRoad, come to think of it) is otherwise more or less impossible at peak hours, thanks to the placing/timing of a set of traffic lights slightly further up BigRoad. The existence of yellow boxes is often nothing to do with the size of the junction per se.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's just basic Highway Code, just transmuted by my smallness into "unless the exit is blocked" instead of "if the exit is clear".

When there is a cycle lane down Mill Road, I will cycle down it until I find the first delivery van parked in it. Until then, it's gap all the way, though I tend not to take wing mirrors off since it would make the drivers who already drive along with one wheel in the gutter even more oblivious to my existence at junctions.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

*thinks*
Perhaps I don't notice there is a box when the junction is small. I can certainly only think of huge junctions when I try and think of box junctions I can remember now. I will have a more careful look when I cycle to work now...(though not so careful that I stop looking at the cars!)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Hmm, and I only learnt to drive a few years ago! Good thing it didn't come up on the test. In my feeble defence, I don't think there are any examples of such round here; turn-right at big junctions seems to usually have its own waiting area in the middle.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Maybe I just had a driving instructor who loved edge-cases :)

The very first lesson I had, before I'd driven anywhere, he asked me if I knew the sequence of light-changes at traffic lights. I did, having learned it in cycling proficiency. He was very surprised, though. So maybe he just liked passing on obscure road lore.

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

A cyclist is more or less a standard road user and should obey the same rules of the highway code as cars....There are odd exceptions with cycle lanes.

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

It drove the person behind me mad

Go you....and Ha Ha for the person behind. What often stuns me is the amount of people that just follow traffic....Odd times where i've gone through on an amber light and had not one, but two cars follow !!!

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

The very first lesson I had, before I'd driven anywhere, he asked me if I knew the sequence of light-changes at traffic lights. I did, having learned it in cycling proficiency. He was very surprised, though. So maybe he just liked passing on obscure road lore.

I got that, too, and they were similarly surprised that I knew. I just knew from, well, having eyes and using them!

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

passing on obscure road lore

That can be useful....I once got nicked for parking on the off side at night.....A fully lit residential street of terrace houses mind. Obviously the cops were bored that night !

Another oddity i hit was a Y shaped traffic intersection, where two roads merge into one. Normaly there is a dotted line or something indicating who should give way, however this didn't...as such you should proceed slowly and cautiously checking for oncomming vehicles and it even came into my test. Nice. Normaly it only occurs on housing estates and private roads, but somewhere in cottingham seemed to be odd.

Snowflake

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I am a pedestrian. That's not the same thing as not being a road user. I have rights and responsibilities in how I use the road in exactly the same way as a cyclist or driver does.

(and yes, I do know how yellow box junctions work. I also know that no bugger uses them correctly, which infuriates me as it invariably leads to someone getting 'trapped' on the junction and then having to run a red light and put other road users as risk to 'escape'.)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Maybe he wanted you to get it wrong, so he could establish a crushing ascendancy over you from lesson one, and you would never dare to question his arbitrary-seeming instructions.

(Or maybe that's just me...)

Re: Snowflake

[venta.livejournal.com]

I am a pedestrian. That's not the same thing as not being a road user. I have rights and responsibilities in how I use the road in exactly the same way as a cyclist or driver does.

True. I get quite annoyed when drivers don't signal turnings just because there aren't any other cars about. Particularly if I'm trying to cross one of said turnings, and am going to be quite surprised to find myself leaping for cover.

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

One thing that always gets me is the way anyone over about 50 seems to be unable to understand what a diagonal black line on a white circular background means.

That's me behind them shouting "speed up you old fool..."

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

NB - my answers are correct, but need the clarification that a) my license is provisional, and b) due to this, I have my driving instructor in the car with me whenever I am driving.

[edling.livejournal.com]

There was a box junction in my home town which every driving test went through, so I had that rule hammered into my brain at an early age.
Regarding answers:
1) I'm a regular driver, but not a frequent one- dunno which you meant there so went for the literal approach.
2) I mostly obey them when driving- if I can see that traffic's moving and I'll only stop for a matter of seconds I might stop in one briefly when I shouldn't, but if not I'll stop before one, I take pleasure in being exact and annoying people behind me.
For similar reasons I like driving exactly on the speed limit when there's obviously no reason for it and it'd be perfectly safe to go to say 5mph above it and seeing how may cars I can collect on my tail :)
Another good game: Stopping at a completely clear red light when I'm cycling, positioning myself so no other bikes can get past me, and getting a queue of annoyed cyclists behind me who'd otherwise go straight through...

[dave [earth.li] (from livejournal.com)]

It doesn't actually mean "You must do more than 50 on this road."

[ebee.livejournal.com]

Thanks for clarifying that- you rock!

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

No. It means the national speed limit applies, which is 60 for a single carriage way and 70 for a dual....

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

It's a Well-Known Fact that only the last car through has jumped the red light. In technical terms all the others are "covered" by that one, and hence aren't criminals after all. Similarly, if anyone overtakes you then you aren't speeding.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I know that because as a pedestrian it's vitally important to tell the difference between "red and amber" (approaching motorists will honk annoyedly when you dash out across the road in front of them) and "amber" (approaching motorists have their foot on the gas and their eyes on the horizon, and won't even see you if you dash across the road in front of them, except possibly in the rearview mirror on your second bounce as they check whether anyone ran the light behind them (see my comment to ulfilias above)).

OK, I lied, it's cycling proficiency.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Ah, the 'notional speed limit'.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

To be fair, drivers under the age of 50 don't know what it means either, it's just that they drive at 60mph by default on single carriageways.