The red light we should be allowed to drive through: My gift to Australia

May 31, 2026 — 2:30pm

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“I don’t want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light.” To Woody Allen’s New Yorker audience and sensibilities, it was a withering critique. But to every native son of Southern California, it remains a chest-thumping source of pride: the right turn on red.

I’ve just returned to Sydney after my first visit to the city of my birth – Long Beach, California – since I became an Australian citizen last year. I pledged my loyalty, under God, to Australia and its people, and I meant it. Australia is “home” now, and while away there was much that I was eager to return to (not least the way we treat one another). But to be loyal is to be constructive, and I have some good, constructive American critique for my new homeland: we need to embrace the “right” turn on red (which in our case is a left).

It’s a sensational bit of public freedom that every Aussie should be able to........

© WA Today