Los Angeles Locals Despise When Tourists Don't Understand This Unspoken Left Turn Rule

Go! Go! Goooooooo! Go now! And while you're at it, go back to Iowa! These are the thoughts streaming through every Angeleno's mind as they sit in the left lane behind your rented Hyundai, laying on the horn to beat the band. You don't understand. You've got Universal Studios punched up on Waze, and you're waiting to make a left turn, but there's no opening in the traffic, no dedicated turn lane, and no left turn signal. The light cycles green-yellow-red, and over again. What are you supposed to do? Run a red light?

Yes, that's exactly what you're supposed to do, according to the culturally agreed-upon standard in a city where being traffic-savvy is the only way to survive. The unspoken rule in Los Angeles is that exactly two left-turning cars may roll forward into the intersection on green, and as soon as the light turns red, off they go. One. Two. Okay, sometimes three. The other drivers all know this too, so it just works. Until you come along, Idaho, and screw it all up for everyone.

It seems like LA's road infrastructure was built up largely as if only right turns existed. Just 14% of the city's intersections with traffic lights include left turn arrows. So drivers took it upon themselves to establish cultural norms that remedied the omission. If Angelenos didn't turn left on red, none of them would ever make it to yoga class. Which they desperately need in order to de-stress from all that road rage.

The rule is unspoken, but it isn't technically unwritten. According to KCRW, there's a traffic law on the books in the State of California that says any left-turning vehicle that is over the white line, i.e., in the intersection, when the light turns red, is allowed to proceed. Enforcement follows the two-car rule, apparently to the letter, as one Redditor writes: "I once got a ticket for being the third. Cop said two cars only." Hey, at the end of their shift, those cops gotta turn left to get home, too.

The obvious solution would be to install left turn arrows, but at more than $50,000 a pop, progress upgrading LA's intersections has been slow. Only 20 to 30 were installed in the 2024 fiscal year. What are the odds that they'll all be on your route to Griffith Park to see the Hollywood Sign? Slim to nada.

Is there another way to turn? Perhaps. UPS trains its fleet of drivers to almost never execute a left turn, instead sticking to the philosophy of "two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left." In other words, circling the block instead of crossing oncoming traffic. The company determined that not only is it statistically safer – 61% of crashes in intersections involve left turns — it is more fuel and time efficient to travel further by circling the block than to sit idling and waiting to turn. To do this, the company programmed its proprietary mapping software to route drivers this way wherever possible. So next time you're on your way to the Santa Monica Pier for a beach day, you can avoid the stress and discomfort of those road-warrior turns by being a right-crawling tortoise, rather than a left-darting hare.

If you're still sore at being rudely honked at, take comfort, for horn-happy Hollywood Hank may get his comeuppance. Angelenos who are used to the two-car left turn rule are doomed to forever struggle when they travel to kinder, gentler places. Oregonians who already resent the influx of California transplants clogging up their freeways and hogging their affordable real estate smugly enjoy sitting there in their Subarus, rusting away in the rain as lights turn red, while the tourists with the California license plate behind them slowly descend into madness. Gridlock was never so sweet.