US road rules
Can you enter an intersection if traffic is backed up on the other side?
No, not even on a green light. If traffic is stopped on the far side, wait at the line until there is room for your whole car past the intersection and the crosswalk. California's anti-gridlock law, §22526, says so outright, and New York and Washington have the same rule. A green light means go if you can get through, not go and stop in the middle.
The rule
- Before you cross the line, look past the intersection: is there room for your whole car beyond the far crosswalk? If not, wait at the line, even on green.
- Count your car, not the gap that might open. Traffic that is creeping now may stop with you halfway across.
- The far crosswalk counts too. Stopping on it blocks people crossing.
- Turning? The street you turn into has to have room as well. California's rule has no exception for turning cars, and it repeats the rule for turning on a yellow.
- New York lets you pull into the intersection to wait for a left turn on a green, if no car ahead of you is turning left. Keep right of the center line and your wheels straight, and turn when oncoming traffic clears or stops for its red.
Where drivers get it wrong
- Following the car ahead in. If it stops just past the line, you stop in the box. Wait until it has moved far enough for you to clear.
- Going because the light is green. Green only means you may go. If you cannot get through, you stay at the line.
- Squeezing in before the red. Getting stuck when the light changes leaves you in front of the cross street on its green. That is gridlock.
Is blocking the box a moving violation?
In California, no. §22526 says it is not a safe-driving law: written by a police officer, it is a stopping violation; written by a parking enforcement officer, it is a parking violation. You still get a ticket.
In New York City, state law has treated blocking the box as a parking violation since 2008, so traffic agents can ticket it, not only police. Elsewhere in New York State, VTL §1175 applies the same rule but makes an exception for drivers who are turning.
How Yield tests it
Yield judges the box at the moment you enter it. If a car ahead in your lane was already stopped when you rolled in, and you end up stuck behind it for a second and a half, that is Blocked the intersection. A car that stops after you are in is not your fault, and neither is waiting for a pedestrian. On the unprotected lefts, it is also the fault if you stop over the center line and make oncoming traffic stop for you. At a light, rolling in on green while a cross-street car is still crossing your path is Went before the intersection was clear.
- Blocked the intersection
- Went before the intersection was clear
Never enter a junction you cannot clear. If traffic is backed up on the far side, hold at the line even on green.
Ray, your instructor in Yield
Rules differ from state to state, and where they do, your state's driver handbook is the one that counts. Yield is practice, not driver's ed or legal advice. Sources: California Vehicle Code §22526 (Anti-Gridlock Act); California Driver Handbook: Laws and Rules of the Road; New York VTL §1175; New York State Driver's Manual, Chapter 5: Intersections and Turns; NYC Department of Finance: blocking the box as a parking violation (2008); Washington RCW 46.61.202.
