Right turn on red

When I took my first drive I had to quickly run through my head the rules of the road. Who has right of way at a 4-way stop? I have to remember to cross traffic when I make a left turn. Oh, I have to stop for those pedestrians rather than speed up to scare the living daylights out of them. :)

In Chicago we had to look for signs at intersections to see if we can turn right on a red (light). I haven't encountered that here yet, but it took me a bit to remember that I COULD turn right on red. Obviously, in the UK one cannot turn right on red because you would be crossing traffic. But one cannot even turn left on a red. At intersections there are 3 lights to wait for: one for each road intersecting, and one for pedestrians at all corners. There is a point where all lights turn red and pedestrians are able to cross. This allows one to cross at a diagonal (I do miss this).

I am also a bit confused about the striped crossing at some carparks and such. These would be zebra (pronounced with a short 'z') crossings, only with a black and white stripe, and this is the one place where pedestrians actually have right of way and all cars stop if there is a pedestrian in the zebra crossing. But here I am not sure if this is just to warn vehicals that there may be a pedestrian in the area, or a pedestrian can actually step out into this crossing even if a car is coming and the car will stop.

It is nice to have right of way as a pedestrian now. We walked to town the other day and as we were crossing the road with the light I felt a little nervous that the car trying to turn might run us down. I wanted to run out of the way. :)