Lane Use at Controlled Intersections

I'd like to discuss a situation that I saw this weekend at an intersection. At the time, I was on foot so I noticed this traffic situation in much greater detail than I would have otherwise. There was a car waiting to turn right at a traffic light. The driver (at Position 1,) was stopped because he didn't have the right of way, due to the oncoming traffic (the driver at Position 2,) having an advance green arrow to turn left ahead of the other traffic. Please see the poorly edited intersection diagram to the right for detail.

Although there are two lanes in the northbound direction where both the driver at Position 1 and the driver at Position 2 will complete their respective turns, legally and for safetly only one driver may enter that roadway at a time. Since the BC Motor Vehicle Act does not stipulate which lane you may finish a left turn maneuver in, the driver in Position 2 has the right of way - he may finish his turn in either of the 2 northbound lanes. Therefore the driver in Position 1 is clearly responsible to wait until the intersection is clear and it is safe for him to enter.

This leads us to the problem. As the driver in Position 1 was waiting, a motorist behind him began honking at him, obviously thinking that it was appropriate for him to go while the left-turning traffic had an advance arrow to go. This visibly stressed out the driver in Position 1 and actually caused him to second-guess his instinct for safety and to give into the pressure and enter the roadway while the left-turning vehicles were still using the intersection.

If a collision had happened after the driver in Position 1 had entered the northbound roadway with one of the vehicles which had an advance left turn signal, the driver in Position 1 would be 100% responsible for the crash, from a legal and insurance perspective. He would likely also receive a ticket for 3 points against his license as well as a fine for entering an intersection when it was unsafe to do so.

Making this situation even worse, the drivers in the 3 vehicles behind the one in question did the exact same thing. Each of the drivers of those vehicles committed a violation of the BC Motor Vehicle Act and placed themselves in a position of being 100% at fault if a collision were to happen and leaving a clear opportunity to receive a traffic infraction.

Additionally, consider that one of the left-turning vehicles might need to lane-change to the right to make a right turn immediately after his left turn. Alternately, the vehicle turning left could be a large truck which requires a wide turn and might end up in the right-most lane. Considering all this, I'm certain you can appreciate why it is never safe to enter a roadway with a maneuver at the same time that another vehicle is entering the same roadway.