Adding bureaucracy (which is effectively already in place at ADOT, and elsewhere apparently) seems like an odd way to have less government:
“Everything’s less government with me,” said Kern, an Arizona Freedom Caucus member … — azcentral.com
In our area, freeway exits with poor sight lines are signed no turn on red (example: Warner and I-10), but okay sight lines are not (example one mile south on Ray and I-10).
Right turn on red is also worse for pedestrians — try walking across Elliot
at I-10 (I’m guessing Senator Kern, or the guy from NMA doesn’t do things like that; it’s pedal to the metal only for those guys) where drivers routinely disregard the red signals, nevermind the signs, entirely while turning right to enter or exit I-10.
Setting aside the sign issue — Drivers routinely fail to stop as required when turning right — where right turns on red are allowed ONLY AFTER MAKING A COMPLETE STOP… in this clip 6 of 6 drivers violate the law (they run the red light) in under 30 seconds:
Here’s the detailed bill history:
SB1299 – traffic control; right on red
Bicyclists, listen up!
BICYCLISTS who ride counter-flow are particularly endangered by motorists who fail to stop at a red signal, or even if they do stop, continue to turn right. Motorists turning right don’t really look to their right. PLEASE DON’T RIDE COUNTER FLOW — EVEN ON THE SIDEWALK.
It is illegal to ride counterflow in the street; It may or may not be illegal to do it on the sidewalk (it depends on the city; Tempe and Yuma it’s illegal; other places, like Tucson, is illegal generally to ride sidewalks)
#RTOR
We have an epidemic in pedestrian and bicycle crashes and deaths in the U.S. the past several years, and they are worried about having to wait for the light before getting the chance to run over someone. Luckily, they don’t know about the “leading” pedestrian signal timing used in more and more urban areas. They’d really blow their top over that.
If it passes hopefully the Governor will veto it. My guess is the cities will complain about the bill because their stated focus now is improving traffic safety and this bill pointlessly weakens traffic safety efforts.
There are worse scenarios, like northbound SR51 at Shea Blvd., where multiple right turn lanes include a continuous flow right turn lane that does not require a stop at all. It simply feeds into a whole new eastbound lane on Shea. No sign, no signal, no need to merge with oncoming traffic, just blow and go. Try walking across those multiple right turn lanes with no provision for pedestrian passage.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2024/03/18/sen-anthony-kern-right-turn-red-conspiracy/73012628007/
Opinion: Sen. Anthony Kern wants to stop cities from taking away your right to turn right on a red light. He just can’t name a single Arizona city that’s doing it.
Which cities are killing right turns on red?
Now he’s turned his narrowed eye to traffic intersections — specifically intersections posted with a sign that says you can’t turn right when the light is red.
…“Right now, cities and towns are kind of willy-nilly putting up no right on red, no right on red. And there’s no study being done, and it’s kind of a pain in the rear end, so I decided to run the bill,” he told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee last week.
His Senate Bill 1299 would require an engineering study before a city could ban a right turn on red. Before posting a sign, a registered engineer would have to evaluate the intersection and determine …
…Never mind that the Arizona Department of Transportation already has a list of protocols for when right turns on red may be forbidden — one that requires the approval of a regional traffic engineer.
Or that there doesn’t seem to be a push on to deny us the right to turn right.
If there was a plot afoot, surely Kern could have named at least one city — or even one intersection — where our rights have been willy-nilly nullified.
To Kern, everything is a conspiracy
Instead, Kern said he got the idea for the bill from a constituent, Jay Beeber, the executive director of policy for the National Motorists Association, an advocacy organization for drivers.
Beeber told the committee he didn’t know if any Arizona cities were willy-nilly forbidding right turns on red. But he did tick off a list of cities not in Arizona that are nixing right turns on red. Among them: Berkeley, Calif., San Francisco, Indianapolis and Washington D.C.
During the 1970s energy crisis, the U.S. began allowing right turns on red to cut down on idling at stop lights. In recent years, a few U.S. cities have begun cracking down in congested areas and even citywide, citing a concern for pedestrian and bicyclist safety
Beeber, however, doesn’t buy it.
“What’s really behind this movement is part of the agenda to make driving as miserable and as difficult as possible so people don’t drive so much,” Beeber told CBS News in November.
https://azgovernor.gov/office-arizona-governor/form/contact-governor-hobbs
Dear Governor Hobbs,
I would like to urge you to veto SB1299.
As you know there’s a crisis in Arizona traffic deaths, not only pedestrians but also in drivers.
Walking is already hard enough.
This unnecessary bill would do nothing to help that situation.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2024/05/06/indicted-arizona-senator-anthony-kern-stew-peters-drag/73593321007/
What is it about these guys and pedophilia?
One of Arizona’s indicted state legislators was banned from the Senate’s broadcast studio on Monday after using state equipment to link up with an antisemitic podcaster who doesn’t think Hitler was such a bad guy after all.
Yep, just another day at the Arizona Capitol.
Sen. Anthony Kern, R-potential felon, went on Stew Peters’ podcast last week to talk about the big story in the state.
To wit: “DRAG QUEENS INVADE AZ CAPITOL”
And by DRAG QUEENS INVADE, I’m guessing they meant the one drag king in a sparkly suit who read poems about being gay to roughly 20 adults in the basement of the Arizona House in an event billed as “Drag Story Hour”.
Kern is one of several far right legislators who fell into foaming-at-the-mouth convulsions upon hearing that a person in drag had come to the Capitol, never mind that there was nothing even vaguely provocative about the adults-only event.
The following day, May 1, he used Senate equipment to go on Peters’ podcast. Curiously, when Peters mentioned (the non-existent) children present, Kern forgot to correct him.
He also didn’t respond to Peters’ monologue wherein Peters wondered whether House Speaker Ben Toma — who like Kern is running for Congress in the northwest Valley’s Congressional District 8 — is a “pedophile” given that the event occurred in the House.
Instead, Kern talked about the outrage of what amounted to a group of adults meeting in the House basement. Or, as Kern called it, a “perv show.”
“I said, ‘Hey, Arizona, this is where your tax dollars are going,’” Kern told Peters.
As opposed to, say, the outrage of using our tax dollars to appear on the show of a Holocaust denier who longs for the good old days of 1939 Germany?
Stew Peters doesn’t hide his antisemitism
Peters is a longtime conspiracy theorist who doesn’t even try to hide his rampant antisemitism with coded language about “globalists” and such anymore.. Heck, the lead-in to his show with Kern depicted an Orthodox Jewish man holding the puppet strings of world leaders.
More on culture wars, cars, bikes, no turn on red…
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/08/16/culture-war-traffic-lights-republicans-00174179