Lawmaker wants to eliminate New Jersey jughandles

A New Jersey lawmaker wants to ban a road feature that’s almost synonymous with the Garden State. 

Jughandles, those right turns that loop drivers around to a cross street instead of making a regular left turn, are almost as common in New Jersey as high property taxes.

State Sen. Jim Holzapfel calls them a traffic headache and a relic.

“We’re in the 21st century … I think there are certain things that, just because we do it, doesn’t make it right,” said Holzapfel, R-Brick. “As you go across the country, especially in the Northeast, the number of places that uses jughandles, there’s fewer and fewer.”

Holzapfel has introduced the bill for about 10 years; it’s moved out of committee only once.  

If the bill were ever to be passed, it wouldn’t eliminate current jughandles just bar construction of new ones.