Interactive tool
Turning right at a yellow box junction
A crossroads with traffic lights and a yellow box, seen from above. You are the white car, waiting at the red light in the right-turn lane. Press Play: first the side roads get green, then the main road.
The junction
Yellow box
0.0 s
- Main road (up the screen): 12.75 m kerb to kerb. Going in: a 1.5 m red cycle lane, a 3.25 m lane for left and straight on, a 3.0 m right-turn lane. Coming out: one 3.5 m lane and a 1.5 m cycle lane.
- In front of the stop line: a 4 m box for cyclists, then a pedestrian crossing at the lights.
- Side roads: 10 m, two lanes going in (left/straight on and right), one coming out. Corners with an 8 m radius.
- The yellow box covers the whole middle of the junction, out to where the corners start: 16.8 m by 14 m.
- Drawn on Figure 9E3 of the Traffic Signs Manual, chapter 9 (traffic signals), “Major/Minor Junction without Central Islands”. The figure has no yellow box; here it can be switched on.
- Major road (up the screen): two lanes going in, left/straight on and a right-turn lane, one lane coming out. The right-turn lanes on the two sides are opposite each other, so right turns can be made during the major-road green without hooking round each other.
- Behind the two lanes, the right-turn lane opens up from a hatched area along the centre line.
- Minor roads: one lane each way. A pedestrian crossing at the lights on every road.
How it works
Green to enter, safe to clear
Turning right at a yellow box junction with traffic lights comes down to five words.
Kris explains
- Green to enter. When your light turns green and you are the first car in the right-turn lane, drive forward into the box and wait near the middle of the junction, without blocking the oncoming traffic. The car behind you waits at the stop line.
- Safe to clear. To finish the turn and leave the junction, all you need is for it to be safe. You don’t have to wait for the green arrow: as soon as there is a gap in the oncoming traffic big enough to complete the turn, go.
- The green arrow. When the green arrow comes on, the oncoming traffic has a red light. Finish the turn, and the cars waiting behind the stop line can follow you through.
- Red while you are in the box. You still have to clear it; you can’t stay in the middle. You don’t know if the arrow will come on at all, and the bulb might not even work. So on red, make sure the oncoming cars have stopped, then complete your turn. Once you’re in, you get out, and you leave the box empty.
- Waiting at the stop line on red. That car can’t go. It has to wait for the green arrow, or for the next green light if the arrow doesn’t come on.
That’s why it works: even if the arrow never comes on, at least one car turns right every time the lights change.
The rules behind it.
Rules of the Road, p. 132: you must not enter a yellow box junction unless you can clear it without stopping; the exception is turning right, when you may enter the box while waiting for a gap in oncoming traffic, but not if that would block other traffic that has the right of way.
Rules of the Road, p. 109: turning right at lights, drive into the junction when you see a green light, take care not to block oncoming traffic, and finish your turn when it is safe; only wait for the filter arrow when you are in the junction and finishing the turn before it would be dangerous. A green arrow means you may go in its direction, if it is safe and the way is clear, even with a red light showing.
On the driving test (RSA marking guidelines, Progress), waiting at the stop line on green when you could go forward towards the centre of the junction, or not taking an acceptable gap, is a fault.