I can confirm that from ordinary reading, not one of the laws quoted in this thread so far provides enough information to figure out an answer to the OP’s question. None of them mention the possibility, and none of them include a rule that covers it. The only way that they might have the answer is if one assumes that arrival sequence dictates departure sequence - and being required (or not required) to make that assumption is precisely the issue at hand.
What is the superior European method?
I have always assumed that the reason that stop signs, and only stop signs, are octagonal is so that you can look across the intersection and see whether the other sides also have to stop. If the stop sign weren’t a unique shape, you couldn’t tell what it was from the back. I’ve always thought that was pretty clever.
Exactly.
“In principle it’s fine, you can go through a logical process to figure out what’s going on” is a terrible defense to poor signage. Sure you can do that, and of course that’s what most drivers do most of the time.
But drivers are often tired or distracted, and some are visitors from overseas. The roads are safer when everyone can easily understand the traffic flow at a junction, and what to expect from other road users.
European countries vary, but so far as I know there is no such thing as a 4-way stop in any European country. Right of way is never determined by who arrived at a junction first. Junctions either give constant priority to one direction (the equivalent of a U.S. 2-way stop junction), or have lights or a roundabout.
Having driven for several decades under both systems, I much prefer the European system. I find traffic flow to be less confusing (and therefore safer) when it’s determined by signage or lights rather than “taking turns”.
The problem of poor distinction between 4-way and 2-way stop junction signage in the U.S. is a separate issue. We could keep 4-way stops, but just make the signage clearer…
It’s certainly a good idea to give STOP signs a unique shape. They are the only octagonal sign in the U.K. too.
But the fact that you rely upon checking for the back of a sign controlling the other roadway to figure out traffic flow kind of demonstrates my point that the signage is fundamentally poor, right?
I’ve never had occasion to drive in Europe, or to closely study European roadways and signage as a passenger, but I have a hard time believing this blanket statement can be true. No four-way-stop intersections anywhere in Europe? Can other Europeans confirm that they are so rare as to justify this general statement?
Okay, but the OP was about a two-way stop, not four-way. In Europe don’t two-way stops look and work like they do in the US: you can only tell the other side has a stop by looking at the back of their stop sign?
What do you propose?
I’m not sure I agree. I haven’t had the advantage of comparing both systems as you have, so I’ll reserve judgment until I see your proposal. I’ll point out in advance that any suggestion that all four-way stops be controlled by lights is a non-starter, since the cost of so fitting the tens (or hundreds?) of thousands of such intersections across the country would be ruinous.
Two-way stops are similar in both Europe and the U.S. But since 4-way stops don’t exist in Europe, you always know the situation as you approach the junction: if you have a stop or yield sign, the cross street traffic always has right of way and does not need to stop. Of course, the street opposite will always also have a stop or yield sign, again no ambiguity.
As for the OP: since the concept of right-of-way determined by order of arrival does not exist in Europe, again there is no ambiguity. Traffic going straight always has priority over traffic turning left (or right in the UK).
Of course I’m not suggesting lights at every intersection, that’s insane. I’m not even suggesting that the U.S. change to the European approach, although I prefer it. In Europe, if a junction is not controlled by lights or a roundabout, one axis just has constant priority - it is a 2-way stop.
But as I’ve said, the main problem with the U.S. system is that the signage is unclear. The same basic sign is used at junctions where priority is determined by order of arrival (all-way stops) and junctions where one axis always has priority (2-way stops). My “proposal” is simply that there should be a much clearer difference between the signs at these two types of junction, since traffic flow operates quite differently at each type of junction.
Thanks! Ignorance fought!
(Of course Wikipedia has an entry about four-way stops. Wikipedia has an entry about everything!)
So, is there a strong consensus that (when he’s sitting at a 2-way stop sign) the person turning left must wait until all three other directions are clear before he starts, regardless of who got there first?
Not clear, as in completely empty: every car on his opposing side has to stop at the stop sign, so he yields for the first he encounters (assuming they got there at about the same time), but as the next car approaches and stops, he can make his turn.
Which is why this post seems so odd to me:
Really? Groups of three could go straight or turn without stopping at a posted stop sign? I’m highly skeptical that this could have been official policy rather than a local or regional practice that might have been common and rarely punished.
Thanks to Riemann for his further replies to my questions. I have to say that, having been brought up with these types of intersections, I have rarely found them as troubling or confusing as others here seem to.
But you said you have never driven in Europe. So this may just be because you have never experienced another way of doing things.
Death By Stop Sign
This part is just wrong. Maybe “among the worst,” but South Korea, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Slovenia, and Belgium all have worse fatality rates per billion vehicle-km (of the countries we have data for. Cite here.)
Now, if the author had just stuck with “per capita,” then they’re right (tied with only recently recognized-as-developed Lithuania.)
Not to take away from the greater point that the article is largely on-point (America’s fatality rates are poor compared to the rest of the developed word), little errors like that in journalistic publication irk me.
At least we don’t have that problem in the Land of Smiles. Everyone completely ignores stop signs here.
I was driving with family once and we saw a truck stop for a stop sign! I said sarcastically “Must be a Farang driver.” My son was just a toddler but immediately came up with a better punchline: “Maybe he’s out of gas.”
Don’t say Thailand isn’t a world leader in anything. Click on Fatalities per Capita/Sort Descending and there we are, #2 behind only Libya.
That’s not how I interpreted that post. I’m pretty sure it meant that after stopping, groups of three cars could go together.
Europe may not have 4-way stops, but they do have totally uncontrolled intersections (i.e. no signs or signals), which means you have to treat them like 4-way stops. And in France (if no where else) they have them in places other than very low volume residential or rural areas. So when approaching an intersection there where there’s no sign, you have to check to see if the cross street has a sign, and if not, you have to stop or at least slow down enough to make sure there’s no cross traffic.
Right. A two way stop. The main road has priority and doesn’t stop. One car approaches from one of the cross directions and stops to wait his turn, he wants to turn left. A car approaches from the other cross direction wishing to go straight. While they are waiting, another two cars come up and stop behind that car. He is skeptical that when there is a clearing, all three of those cars proceed at once before the left turner can go.
I don’t think it applies in this case because of the main flow traffic priority and need to ensure the road is clear before proceeding.
Okay, a 4-way stop, it’s busy so traffic is arriving and backing up on the one lane road in all directions. You have to wait several iterations before you get to the actual intersection. Then the rule about 3 cars proceeding at once might make some sense. If you’re in the second or third car, you don’t have to stop again at the stop sign, you have already stopped for the sign by virtue of being the second or third car. This would speed up the intersection, at the cost of confusion on when this three car rule does and doesn’t apply (someone trying it on the 2-way stop case above).
To the OP, the standard practice here in that situation is that both cars on the cross streets would proceed into the intersection at the gap, but the left-turner would wait until the other car has cleared his path before completing the turn. He sufficiently yielded to traffic with right-of-way, but did so in a manner that allowed him to proceed, and not wait for the other dozen cars on the opposite side.
Or they both drive to the median and try to sit in the cross gap, and another car tries to squeeze in and ends up blocking traffic.
So, no consensus, and the laws that should apply seem to be silent on the issue.
OP, I think you’re right. I think it’s undefined, and I think everyone is making up their own little supplementary rules to try to resolve the issue to their own satisfaction. And then expecting all other drivers to read their minds. 
I still say that when cars A and B are opposed at stop signs, left-turning B must wait for A, but not for the car behind A. Logic dictates this, and the quoted rules seem ambiguous enough not to rule this out. And that’s the way we played in California … I think.
@DavidwithanR - When you note earlier that none of the posts make it clear, I can’t disagree more: the one that I posted for Ontario is crystal clear: The car going straight through an intersection ALWAYS has the right of way. The car turning left must ALWAYS yield, this is true regardless of intersection arrival order. No grey zone, it addresses the OP exactly (for Ontario). In Ontario, arrival order does not matter unless you are at a 4 way stop!
As OP described: an intersection with a main street (let’s say East-West) that has no stops and a cross street (North-South) with stop signs on both directions. The order of operations is:
- The cars going straight EW have the right of way over everyone else.
- A car turning right either EW direction, has the right of way next (For example: a car going west was turning left and a car going east was turning right, the car going east has the right of way, regardless of who arrived first.
- A car turning left either EW direction has the next right of way after all other EW cars have cleared the intersection.
- A car going in either NS direction straight through has the next right of way.
- Left turning cars in either NS direction must yield to all others allowing them to clear the intersection first, regardless of whether they arrived before or after the left turning car. That was the OP’s question.
If you’re going N and turning W and arrive first and are waiting for EW traffic to clear before you turn left and then 10 cars going straight S straight arrive after you, you must yield the right of way to all 10 cars before you can legally turn left. The order you arrive does not matter. OP answered.
I know you still say that. But I don’t think any law has been shown here that could confirm it. Customary procedures are not laws, and it seems that all the laws have forgotten to mention it - except the Ontario one, which I had missed, and which contradicts you, saying the left-turning car must wait until every straight-through car has gone first.
I had actually written out a comment in one of my previous posts to the effect that you just happened to like the system you were brought up with, but that doesn’t mean that it’s actually superior. But I decided to delete it before posting. So your cites showing that the US system is (perhaps) objectively worse are quite eye opening to me. Thanks for posting them.
I remain slightly skeptical about these claims, however, because I strongly suspect that driver’s ed in Europe is much more rigorous and thorough than it is in the US. I’m not totally discounting the articles by any means, but as at least one of the authors concedes, the problems with signage may not be the full explanation for the disparity in the level of accidents and fatalities.
Of course as with the metric system, the weight of inertia means that any idea of a large-scale switch to the European system is probably not going to happen, unless incrementally over a very long period of time. By that time, though, autonomous vehicles will have taken over the world, and no humans will know how to drive.
Sorry, I was a little unclear. I didn’t mean to suggest that three cars could go without any of them stopping. But the idea that the last two of three cars that have stopped together at an intersection can follow the first without each also stopping at the stop sign is totally contrary to what I was taught in driver’s ed in Maryland in the early 1970s. Every car approaching a stop sign must stop, whether turning or not.
Can the people who claim that this was allowed please specify where and when, whether it is still permitted, and most importantly, provide a cite from law?