[OSM-talk] Turn left restriction on two way highways

[Steve Bennett]

On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 9:00 AM, Nic Roets <nroets at gmail.com> wrote:
> I know it may look like a lot of work adding all the no_left_turns, but it's
> the right way.

I have to disagree. OSM happens to have started in the UK, but that
doesn't mean that UK defaults make sense everywhere. If it had started
in Argentina, you can be sure that we wouldn't have "no_left_turn" as
the exception.

I think we definitely need to define defaults that make sense for each
country, and formalise this in some way. Preferably in the database,
perhaps as tags on the country boundary: "default:no_left_turn=yes" or
something.

> 3. Tourists who map in Argentina may not do the right thing.

It's far more important that people who live in the country have tags
that are easy to use and make sense for them. Just witness the endless
confusion and debates that (UK-specific) tags like
"highway=unclassified" and "highway=cycleway" have caused for the rest
of the world.

I'm actually starting to think it would make more sense for each local
community to map using their own tag schema, and then to define
cross-walks to allow the communities to join up. But it's probably too
late for that now.

Steve