Michigan Drivers Confused About Turning Left on Red

The 'Michigan Left' isn’t the only weird turn allowed!

I thought I had a pretty good handle on the rules of the road until a strange encounter during my morning commute made me question everything I thought I knew.

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Think you can’t turn left on red in Michigan? Think again.

And it's not just the fact that yes, you can legally turn left on red in certain cases in Michigan, but it's knowing when and where you can do so. Let me explain:

The other day I was driving across Kalamazoo on my way to work when I stopped at a familiar intersection-- Crosstown Parkway and Park Street. Park St. is that one-way that’ll take you all the way out of town. I was sitting at a red light, waiting to go straight, when a little Subaru pulled up next to me in the left-turn lane. The driver stopped, paused for a moment, then turned left on red onto Park St. I was confused! I thought,

Wait, I know you can turn left from a one-way onto a one-way, but did that person just run a red light? That's very bold of them!

It's almost common place for Kalamazoo drivers to run red lights as-is, so when the light changed to green I continued on my journey, but it's something I continued to think about all day: was that driver wrong-- or am I?

Turns out, it was me. I'm the problem! You can actually turn left on red from a two-way onto a one-way if your turn happens to be with the flow of traffic. Section 257.612 of the Michigan Vehicle Code states,

Vehicular traffic facing a steady red signal, after stopping...may make a left turn from a 1-way or 2-way street into a 1-way roadway carrying traffic in the direction of the left turn, unless prohibited by sign, signal, marking, light, or other traffic control device.

Fun fact: Yes, there are actually rules when it comes to driving on Michigan's roads!