In a few threads about travel advice the topic of driving in Europe came up. Posters were warned of the “right-before-left” rule that exists in some European countries, including France and Germany. I even recall posters who found this rule extremely irritating.
Obviously this implies that this rule doesn’t exist in America or at least it isn’t common. So my question is: What do you have instead?
What the rule says is that by default the driver coming from the right has the right of way at intersections unless specifically indicated otherwise by signs or traffic lights etc. As I said this is only the default case and whenever a different solution seems more sensible the appropriate signs are posted. Therefore if you are driving on a multi-lane main road and a small residential road comes from the right, then usually signs will give you the right of way as everyone would expect. In residential areas comparable roads will often intersect without any sign and the “right-before-left” rule applies.
How is this handled in the US? Are there signs at every single intersection? Do you just leave it to chance at some intersections? Which other rules are there?
Some states specify that at a T intersection (the through traffic, they call it, since they’re travelling through the intersection without stopping or turning), traffic crossing the top of the T has right-of-way over people traveling up or down the vertical spoke.
There are, as you guessed, numerous (mostly sign- or light-defined) exceptions.
We’re also seeing more and more roundabouts here, and let me tell you, that’s a scary thing to behold. If we can’t get people to not stop on a straight-line onramp onto the freeway, giving them a roundabout is a very very bad idea.
The vast majority of intersections have signs, but many also have stop signs for all directions. In the two states I know (Pennsylvania and New York), if two vehicles arrive at an unmarked intersection or an all-way stop at the same time, the drive on the right has the right of way.
It s a big country so I am sure you can find just about anything. However, we generally don’t have that type of system here. The vast majority of intersecting roads should be marked with stop signs, yield signs, or lights to show who has the right of way.
In very rural areas, you may find some intersecting roads without any of these but we still wouldn’t default to a right-before-left rule. The smaller road would be treated as a stop at the intersection or both sides would stop.
As mentioned, the only type of rule we have like that is if two cars arrive at a 4-way stop at exactly the same time. Even a slight time difference and that case is even first come first served.
Interesting. The rule on T-intersections explains many cases but if I understand it correctly, you mostly have more signs on smaller roads. In our residential areas you might find whole neighborhoods without signs.
Btw. we don’t have any four-way stops.
California’s law is the same as that already described for other states (the car on the right has the right-of-way).
BTW, are there really places where most intersections are controlled in some way? Where I live most intersections in residential neighborhoods have no stop light, stop sign or yield sign. Stop lights are only on heavily-traveled streets, and stop signs are mostly on heavily-used intersections.
Really? I can’t think of a single intersection with nothing, offhand. I’ve lived in 4 states. Even in way rural Arkansas where my dad lives there’s a stop sign at the end of his dirt road where it meets the highway.
There are quite a few intersections near where I live that have no signs at all posted. These roads are basically one step up from a gravel or dirt road and don’t have any paint on the roads either, so there’s no center line, no marker for the edge of the road, no nuthin. We’re lucky that they’ve even been paved at some time in their history.
I live in southern PA, btw, not too far from Gettysburg.
It’s a general rule in the US that folks on the right at, say, a four-way intersection with four stops have right-of-way. Unfortunately, people carry this rule over to traffic circles/rotaries, where it doesn’t[ hold. One wonderful thing I’ve found in Europe is that people treat the “circus” the proper way – people in it have the right of way. Here in the US, and especially in Massachusetts, they don’t know, or don’t care, or think they know(but are mistaken). Maybe that’s why New Jersey has gotten rid of most of its traffic circles over the past few decades. But Massachusetts still loves 'em.
Every single intersection I can think of here in town is signed. Even out in the boonies there’s usually some sort of signage. Four way stop signs are common.
The ‘road’ (basically a dirt trail) I live on does not have a sign where it connects up to the busier gravel road. I don’t know what the law says, but common sense says that the people on the gravel road have the ROW.
And I have always followed the person on the right has the ROW at intersections with stop signs when both drivers stop at the same time. Seems everyone else does where I live too. I thought that was just common knowledge.
I don’t know that I have ever run across an unmarked intersection. If I have, it would have been deep into farmland on dirt roads where your chance of even seeing another car is zero. Here’s my take on the situation where you approach an intersection that is unmarked.
The you see that there are no stop or yeild signs for you, so you (rightly so) assume the other direction has them, so you cruise right on through without a second thought.
You notice the other direction doesn’t have any signs as well, think ‘oh crap’, slow down, look for other traffic, proceed with caution, and wonder where the signs are.
I don’t know, I lived 2 houses up from a “traffic circle” as we call them for years, and although we heard a lot of screeching tires there weren’t any wrecks that I can think of. This was a small traffic circle with five 25 or 35mph roads coming into it. One road had a stop sign, the rest could go on through with the usual yielding stipulation of course. Generally it worked well to keep things moving (very well for locals) although out of towners would sometimes STOP inside the circle, not knowing or trusting they had the right of way.
I want to defend the humble roundabout, too. We have one in my town (oops - not after September!) that connects three semi-major routes, Route 9 N & S, Route 2, and Route 7. People handle it very nicely, especially after they repainted all the lines nice and bright. I like it way better than a stupid traffic light that you have to sit at for sometimes up to two minutes.
Come to Massachusetts some time if you want to see the culmination of imperfection of American rotary design. The rotaries here are an open-air animated sculpture showcasing the worst of man’s insecurity, indecision, senseless aggression and illogical thoughts. There a different competing and incompatible philosophies of right or way rules that duke it out through brute force until the day when only the adherents of one philosophy remain. Perhaps our descents will be the beneficiaries of this type of traffic Darwinism but those of us today are simply stuck in the war.
Massachusetts - The home of Harvard, MIT, The Big Big, and traffic circles
This is a crucial argument in favour of roundabouts. Even when people make mistakes, misjudgements, or whatever, they do so at an already-slow speed, so actual collisions are less likely, and injuries (including to pedestrians) are reduced.
Of course you can extend this “crucial” argument to be in favor of any traffic engineering feature that screws traffic up to the point dysfunction and near standstill.
