Right-turn-on-red (“RTOR,” in some circles) was introduced nationwide in the mid-1970s as part of a broad, national fuel-saving strategy in response to the “Arab fuel embargo” of 1973–74 (context here). The goal was to save gas by minimizing idling.
In a tribute to former Senator Dale Bumpers, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia said:
The above discourse clearly references the actions of only one man—Senator DALE BUMPERS, Democrat from Arkansas. He is the U.S. Senator responsible for “right-turn-on-red,” his first legislative victory and one for which, I am told, he received devilish teasing from a colleague who warned that “many people might want to drive straight!”
(Bumpers’s Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention it.)
Dr. Allan R. Hoffman (Senior Analyst in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy of US DoE) has written a short, sharp memoir about federal efforts to reduce US oil imports: “The Origins of CAFE”—Corporate Average Fuel Economy performance standards (enacted into law as Title V, the Energy Policy Conservation Act, 1975)—in the American Physical Society’s Forum on Physics and Society of 2007 Oct, 36.4). Two excerpts, the first hinting at the origins of the SUV, the second at the SUV as “Edsel 2.0” (a phrase unknown to Google—isn’t the analogy obvious?):
One:
Another issue that arose was how to deal with luxury car fleets that were unlikely to meet the standards. Some quick calculations determined that the amount of gasoline at stake was small, and I recommended that we let the luxury car purchasers pay the civil penalty for non-compliance and leave it at that, recognizing that we couldn’t fix all the problems in one bill. Of course, we were subjected to considerable lobbying on all sides of the fuel economy issue, including one day when Lynn [Sutcliffe, General Counsel, Senate Committee on Commerce] and I met with supporters of the legislation in the morning and strong opponents of the legislation in the afternoon. Our end-of-day conclusion was that we must be doing something right.
Two:
A final piece of history: about a year after the legislation was signed into law, I ran into the chief lobbyist for one of the automobile companies in the U.S. Capitol. He pulled me aside, told me he would never say this publicly, and expressed his opinion that the legislation had “saved his industry.” That may or may not be true (many in the industry would strongly disagree with his statement), but those of us who worked on CAFE can take pride in helping the country move forward after the oil embargo. The legislation achieved its goal of improving new car fuel efficiency, but, unfortunately, by reducing the cost of driving it stimulated VMT [average vehicle miles traveled] increases which partially offset the possible fuel savings. This is a lesson for the future.
A systematic survey of RTOR: “Following more than 25 years of intense political debates”—which suggests that cultural driving habits might be just as entrenched as industries or national-scale regulation—the Ministry of Transportation of Quebec (MTQ) commissioned a study, published in 2002, “aimed at either adopting or rejecting the RTOR once and for all.” The paper (Dominique Lord, “Synthesis on the Safety of Right Turn on Red in the United States and Canada,” 2002) took into account ”safety, traffic operational improvements, and other characteristics ... based on information gathered from various agencies in the United States and Canada.”
In 2006 (or so), UPS started to use GPS/GIS info in designing its delivery routes to minimize left-hand turns. A factsheet (“UPS Experts Offer Tips for Better Gas Mileage”) says:
Avoid left turns. UPS routes are designed to avoid left turns. We have learned that idling waiting to turn left wastes gas. Not to mention the cars idling behind you waiting for you to turn. It is also safer to avoid left turns since you reduce the number of times you turn across oncoming traffic. [emphasis added]
It took UPS over thirty years and an organization-wide digitial initiative (“Package Flow Technologies: Innovation at Work”) to catch up with a freshman senator. But where did he get the idea from?
