The light's red, but it points to confusion

Red means stop. Red light means stoplight.

Whether it's a red circle or a red arrow, that's the first thing we ought to do at a red light in North Carolina: Stop.

Now that we've agreed on the basics of red-light law, let's skip ahead to some disagreeable details. Drivers at busy Triangle intersections have different ideas about what to do when the red light is a right-turn arrow.

They use their horns and their fingers to debate whether right turns are (A) particularly encouraged, (B) merely tolerated or (C) flatly banned at red arrow signals.

The correct answer -- in North Carolina, anyway -- is (B). A red arrow signal is used only in turn lanes, but it carries the same legal meaning as a solid circle (see Stop, above).

"Whether it's a red arrow or a red circle, you can turn right after stopping -- unless there's a sign that says you can't," said Capt. Everett Clendenin, spokesman for the state Highway Patrol.

Maryann Quartiere of Raleigh learned to drive in New York, where the law is (C) no turns allowed at red arrows. When she's in the right-turn lane on Brier Creek Parkway, preparing to turn onto Glenwood, she stays put until the red right arrow turns to a green right arrow.

Invariably, the drivers behind her beg to differ. They lose patience. They honk their horns. They use hand signals that mean the same thing in all 50 states.

"Somebody is going to cream into me one day,"said Quartiere, 51, who has lived in North Carolina for four years. "They're coming up behind me, and they're expecting me to go. They get frustrated and pull around me to turn right on red."

Janet Giannattasio has lived in Raleigh since 1971. She also grew up in New York, where she learned that driving is something she can simply do without. Her husband is her driver.

There's a right-turn arrow on southbound U.S. 1 in Cary, at westbound U.S. 64. She thinks drivers should wait for a green arrow before they turn right.

"Sometimes people don't even slow down," said Giannattasio, 65. "They just go ahead and go."

These ex-New Yorkers are not alone in their confusion. Arrow signals and right-on-red rules are two of the areas in which the 50 states disagree on traffic rules.

North Carolina uses arrow signals to designate turn-only lanes. Meanwhile, the state is phasing out turn-only signs.

A perennial legislative issue is a call to have North Carolina join other states that allow left turns on red, where you're turning from a one-way street onto another one-way street. That notion has never drawn much support in Raleigh.

New York has its own struggles with right-on-red. In New York City, right-on-red is banned except where a sign is posted permitting it. Elsewhere in that state, right-on-red is allowed (at solid red signals, not arrows) -- except where a sign forbids it.

Quartiere found North Carolina's driver handbook unhelpful in its terse explanation that a red arrow "means turning traffic should stop."

She's glad to resolve the right-arrow issue raised by those impatient drivers on her bumper.

"It's actually more unsafe to not go with what traffic is doing," Quartiere said. "Next time I'm actually going to come to a stop and make the safe right turn on red, when I see that it's clear."