some left turns in Detroit

I had the misfortune of being in Detroit recently and they have "Michigan lefts" all over the place.

You can't turn left, but instead are supposed to drive past the street you wish to turn on, then make a u-turn, then make a right. They even have built lanes specifically so you can do this.

But occasionally, there are places where you can turn left. For example, you can turn left (North) onto Van Dyke from (Eastbound) Outer Drive.

When I was doing this, everyone I saw except 1 trucker stopped half-way through their left and waited for the northbound Van Dyke light to turn green. I was up there for over a week and in all that time, I only saw 1 driver ignore the red on the street they turned onto.

Are you really supposed to stop there? There is a median, but if more than about 4 cars turn left (2 lanes), traffic will be backed up for those trying to go straight.

That seems pretty f***ed up to me.

And I'd also like to thank the road planners for throwing in a few New Jersey lefts, just to make things interesting.

There's nothing like looking for the place to make a u-turn and seeing that for this left, you're actually supposed to take a small cloverleaf 270 degree turn to the right. Good thing it's easy to outrun semis from a standstill at a traffic light, even when you have to cut across 3 lanes of traffic to get in front of them.