When a car is turning left at a green light but a car coming from the opposite direction wants to make a right turn, who has the right of way if both cars are looking to make the turn at the same time? In this situation, there’s only one lane for both cars to turn into. – Richard, Toronto

When you’re turning left at a green light, you’ve got no right to turn until it’s safe.

So, if there’s only one lane to turn into, that means yielding to a car turning right.

“The vehicle that is making a right turn on a green has the right of way [the same as if it were going straight through],” said Sean Shapiro, a road safety consultant and former Toronto traffic cop. “The vehicle wanting to make a left turn on a green has a higher level of responsibility because they’re crossing over oncoming traffic.”

If you’re turning left and don’t yield to a vehicle turning right into the same lane, you could be charged with making an unsafe turn, which comes with an $85 fine ($150 in a community safety zone) and two demerit points.

While the rules vary by province, generally, left-turning vehicles must yield to oncoming vehicles at a green light.

Stay in your lane

So, what about if there’s more than one lane to turn into?

“Then the responsibility changes – because if you’re two people turning into your own respective lanes, nobody should come into contact,” Shapiro said. “You should be able to turn, but you still have to make sure it’s safe.”

Here’s a quick Turning 101: When there are multiple lanes, you should always turn left into the left-most lane and the driver turning right should turn into the right-most lane. If there’s more than one turning lane, you should complete your turn in the lane you started from – so, for example, if you started your turn from the middle lane, you should turn into the middle lane. If you want to change lanes once you’ve completed your turn, then you can signal and make a lane change – when it’s safe, he said.

If either driver turns into the wrong lane, they could be charged with making an improper turn (also an $85 fine and two demerits), he said.

“An improper turn is when there’s a technical issue with the turn,” he said. “If you make a turn and go wide [for instance], then that’s an improper turn. You could also get charged with careless driving.”

So, even though you technically have the right of way to turn left if you have your own safe lane to turn into, it’s still a good idea to wait for the right-turning driver to finish their turn first – just in case they turn wide or turn into the left lane, Shapiro said.

“You never really want to meet in the middle,” he said. “If you’re both turning at the same time and you get that feeling that it’s going to be tight – that’s an indicator that you should have let the other guy go first.”

Your turn to turn?

But those rules about yielding to cars going straight or turning right change when you have an advance green – a left-pointing green arrow or flashing green light that tells you to turn, Shapiro said.

“The person making the left turn with the advance green absolutely has the authority to turn. Nobody else can turn right unless it’s safe to do so.”

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