The slow left turn: A Michshol!

In my youth I occasionally made slow, leisurely left turns at intersections. It seemed to me elegant to take all the time I had, right up to the moment of the light changing red. And I would be more safe I thought, because moving slowly and dependably allowed all the other drivers to see what I was doing, and to react if I was accidentally moving into their space.

I never take slow left turns anymore. I had one or two experiences that foreshadowed the traumatic one. I now think of the slow left turn as a terrible michshol, a stumbling block placed before the careless driver. Here’s what I learned:

My first clue to the evil of the leisurely left turn was a small one. Once or twice I turned left as the light changed yellow, and found to my amazement, that a driver behind me had made the turn as well. That driver must have hot-pinked the light. Or perhaps that driver was determined to make the turn, infuriated by the slow movement of my car, and just pushed through the intersection in my wake.

One evening, returning home, I turned left off of the last highspeed road I had to travel that day. The light changed yellow. A sports car was coming towards me from the other direction. It was driving fast, evidently intending to catch the light. I calculated that I would be out of its way in time, and took my leisurely turn, driving slowly, safely into the crossroad beyond the intersection. As I did this I heard a hideous sound of brakes screetching and tires skidding on the road. I looked in my rear view mirror, and this is what I saw:

1. There was a station wagon right behind me. The driver behind me had also turned left, following me through the intersection.


2. The sports car was just beyond the intersection on the LEFT side of the road, exactly where I had begun my turn. It had avoided hitting the station wagon by a remarkable deft maneuver, yet it would have crashed headon had there been another car following the station wagon that stopped at the intersection.

The woman in the station wagon was a terribly careless driver, and she must have just assumed the road was clear for left turns. I believe my car blocked her view of the sports car, but she should not have committed to a turn until her view was clear. But that’s why I call the slow left turn a Michshol: I set up a rare situation in which a normally careless driver could suffer, or cause, a headon collision.

And there were no airbags in those days.