Letter turns

I made a three-point turn to turn my car around last night, and Jim told me that he’s recently been hearing that kind of turn called a K-turn. I had never heard that term before.

Wikipedia adds that it’s also known as a Y-turn, which I’ve also never heard before.

And coincidentally, this morning I saw a Facebook post of mine from 2015 in which I described a cabbie’s complicated turn pattern to get through an intersection, and referred to it as an N-turn. Kat helpfully provided a diagram in comments.

So now I’m wondering about what turns look like for other letters. The U-turn is quite common, of course, but what about others?

2 Responses to “Letter turns”

  1. Jed

    Followup: I just learned about the J-turn, which is similar to a bootleg turn.

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  2. MyS

    K-turn was certainly used for a 3-point turn in driver’s ed in New Jersey in the late ’80s, possibly even in the manual. Thus refuting the idea that one never turns in Jersey, merely going around jughandles indefinitely.

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