Little Known Traffic Violations Used By The Police To Stop And Check For DUIs. Part 1

There are a number of traffic violations which many people don’t even realize are against the law. These violations are often used by the Police and Highway Patrol to make traffic stops, especially at night to check for impaired drivers. This is part of a series of blogs I will be writing to provide information on some of these offenses.

The first offense we will discuss is Ohio Revised Code section 4511.36 “Rules for turns at intersections”. What is basically requires is that if a person makes a right turn onto a multiple lane road, they must do it from the right lane and into the lane closest to the curb. If they are making a left turn onto a multiple lane road they must do it from the left lane and into the left lane closest to the center line. So a person who is making a left and then a quick right will need to turn into the inner lane and then signal and move over to the right lane instead of turning directly into the right lane. Similarly, a person making a right turn and then a quick left will need to turn into the curb lane then signal and move to the left lane.

Many people when making a turn on a multiple lane road simply turn into whichever lane is most convenient for their direction of travel because they are unaware of this requirement. This law is seldom enforced in the daytime but is often used by police officers as a pretext to stop drivers while they are looking to make arrests for DUI.