Assume you wish to drive straight ahead at a crossroads while someone in the opposite road wants to turn right. Who has the priority? The point does not seem to be covered by the Highway Code.
This happened to me this morning. Big, ugly-looking customer in a big, ugly-looking 4WD started blasting off (in a heavily built-up area) while I gave way to 3 cars turning left in front of me. I can only assume he wanted me to force a passage so he would not have to wait about 25 seconds.
What would you have done?
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The same - in the absence of bullet resistant glass on a ?koda.
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I'm amazed that any holder of a full licence needs to ask that question.
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I'm amazed that any holder of a full licence needs to ask that question.
Suppose you answer it, if you know.
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You always pass oncoming vehicles offside-to-offside - no exceptions.
The vehicle turning right thus passes behind the vehicle[s] going straight on - any other way carries the chance of a misunderstanding leading to an impact.
Exactly the same as the procedure as at a single set of lights.
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You always pass oncoming vehicles offside-to-offside - no exceptions.
Not true if you ever notice the position of right hand arrow markings on some junctions , some make you pass near side to near side if both vehicles follow the arrows
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I did consider adding "unless directed to do otherwise;" but thought that was self-evident and would be obfuscating, as the question was clearly concerning a situation where no such direction was given, or a decision would not have been required.
Just to clarify then; ".....in such situations, you always pass nearside-to-nearside - no exceptions."
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does this count as near side to near side?
tinyurl.com/3x2pqr
Well it counted as the longest URL I've seen in a good while ! Use the TinyURL in sticky in future or the post will be binned.
Edited by Pugugly on 26/04/2008 at 22:29
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does this count as near side to near side?
Does what?
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it was meant to be a satalite view of a road junction but i obviously fluffed it up...sorry guys
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>> near side to near side if both vehicles follow the arrows
And they don't always. Some people don't know what an arrow means.
Sometimes though where there are no markings the shape of the junction suggests that nearside-to-nearside is the way to go, and in London these days most people do at junctions of that sort. The occasional fundamentalist sometimes causes a glitch though
:o}
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Not so. In Scotland, the standard is n/s to n/s.
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The same - in the absence of bullet resistant glass on a ?koda.
I agree. Discretion is the better part of valour.
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In built-up areas with lots of traffic you have to take each situation as it comes. If it seems appropriate, you give way even when it's really your road - as it is in the circumstances described: right turners have to wait for the traffic going straight ahead, just as they would have to if it were a T junction.
Unless the OP's exit was blocked, in which case he was right to give way to three right turners, then he was wrong and I don't blame the big ugly customer for his feelings (although I like to think I wouldn't have started hooting so soon in his place).
Bullet proof glass indeed PU! What are you, a tabloid journalist? Really!
Some of nature's pussycats are big ugly looking customers. He might have been hooting just to express goodwill and general jollity.
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No a broadsheet reader as I used the multi syllable word - resistant. Maybe I should have put a smily thing there.
That's one thing with the Landie though, people seem to give way to you in the most unusual circumstances.
Edited by Pugugly on 26/04/2008 at 16:29
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the multi syllable word - resistant.
Not quite sure what use 'resistant' would be though unless it was resistant enough to stop any untoward projectile... :o}
A few years ago plod stopped a big 4wd a couple of hundred yards down the road from here and put tapes round it. It had two flat tyres, all the doors open and the rear screen covered with small holes, as if plod had given it both barrels of a sawn-off twelve bore loaded with No. 4 shot at about three yards range. The young copper there denied, with a shifty grin, that any firearms had been discharged. But I had heard something that sounded very like them, fireworks perhaps.
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"a broadsheet reader"....
Irrelevant but interesting point -
I read the Times. Does that make me a tabloid reader? I think the Telegraph and the FT are the only broadsheets left.
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Between the Wail and other unspeakables, and the FT/Telegraph are the berliner size papers: Guardian, Independent, Times. But not the Berliner Zeitung:)
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It wasn't meant literally - can we get back to the topic ?
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Where I live there are hundreds of crossroads on narrow country roads, with barely room to pass on either side. Obviously you have to turn nearside to nearside.
It all depends on the circumstances, manoeuvrebility of the vehicles, and the layout of the junction. Obsession with "priority" is pointless - I'd rather avoid an accident.
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Obsession with "prioity" is pointless -
- I'd rather avoid an accident.
So would I but I'm not sure traffic cops or insurance companies agree as regards priority, or "right of way" as we call it. A formal rule would make things clear but there appears to be none in the Highway Code. In France, the very useful, all-purpose rule is "priority to the right", with very clearly indicated exceptions e.g. main roads have priority over minor ones and traffic from the left has priority in roundabouts ; and their highway code is also a lot clearer than ours (although neither point prevents over twice the annual road death count as ours, down, I think to differences in temperament).
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In Florida the first to arrive at an unmarked crossroads has priority...
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In Florida the first to arrive at an unmarked crossroads has priority...
And all junctions are pass nearside to nearside (i.e. passenger side to passenger side) - which is the most sensible to keep traffic moving.
Anyone in Edinburgh who tries otherwise will likely get mugged!
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Assume you wish to drive straight ahead at a crossroads while someone in the opposite road wants to turn right. Who has the priority?
You have priority.
The vehicle ahead will need to 'cross your path ' and therefore should give way.
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Hmm, is that right, both cars have a 'Give Way' sign on to the priority road. Person turning right is turning on to the priority road, person crossing is not. Therefore does the person joining the priority road not aquire priority over the person just crossing it ?
That said discretion is certainly the better part of valour and in my experience many other factors come into it in the real world.
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Pezzer
No. That was the whole point of the nearside/nearside rule - everybody knew what to do in a very common situation and it was fail-safe.
Don't they they teach that to drivers these days?
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Pezzer No. That was the whole point of the nearside/nearside rule - everybody knew what to do in a very common situation and it was fail-safe. Don't they they teach that to drivers these days?
In your first post you said:
"You always pass oncoming vehicles offside-to-offside - no exceptions. "
So which is it?
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Oops! That's what comes from rushing a posting to go and [try to] earn some money: offside.
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In Spain, the two-cars-oncoming in a "Mexican standoff" rarely occurs. It is extremely rare for two oncoming roads to have equal priority: one will have a Give Way sign and the other no sign or else a STOP, which clearly shows who has priority.
There is a well-established hierarchy of signs and markings, with uniformed traffic cop at the top, then traffic light, road sign, road marking and (if all else fails) "give way to the right" last.
In Switzerland the Postbus has priority over absolutely every other vehicle.
In Germany it *seems* to be:
1. Porsche 2. Mercedes 3. BMW 4. Audi... and so on through other, "lowlier" makes and nationalities of cars.
In the USA the guy with the biggest gun rack wins...
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