ADS-L Digest - 18 Sep 2005 to 19 Sep 2005 (#2005-263)

[Paul Johnston]

In Whippany, NJ (next town to my home town of Morristown), there was a
jughandle turn at the junction of Whippany Rd. and NJ 10, which may
match what you're talking about.  If you were on Whippany and wanted to
turn right, you did so directly, but if you wanted to turn left, you
crossed 10, looped leftward and came back to the intersection as if you
were on Whippany going the other direction, and made a right turn.  If
you were intending to do a U-turn, you went straight through the
intersection.  Such intersections aren't uncommon in North Jersey, but
in Michigan, where I live now, I only know of one here in Kalamazoo, and
that's more like the "jughandle turn" referred to in the original
passage, where you go straight through the intersection and there's a
U-turn lane later on (I remember a few of these as a teenager on US 46
in NJ).  The usual Midwestern solution is to add a turn lane to the
inside, which was absolutely unknown in NJ when I lived there.

Paul Johnston
On Wednesday, September 21, 2005, at 02:45  AM, Mullins, Bill wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: ADS-L Digest - 18 Sep 2005 to 19 Sep 2005 (#2005-263)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>> I'm told that this turn originated in New Jersey (no authority given),
>> where it is called a 'jug handle turn'
> I thought a "jug handle turn" was where, if you wanted to turn left,
> you =
> first
> got into the rightmost lane, and then exited into a small-radius =
> pull-off
> that directed you directly leftward to your original direction, usually
> with a traffic light or other signal.  This way, you crossed at a
> right =
> angle
> to your original direction of travel, and once across your lane(s),
> you =
> could
> proceed straight ahead (making what would have been a left turn), or =
> could
> turn left from there (making what would have been a U-turn).
> =20
> I've seen these in Massachusetts, and maybe NJ.