Not flat enough for a grid? That didn’t stop the planners of San Francisco!
Lincoln Nebraska (which is a nearly perfectly planned grid except for a few streets here and there), and most of the towns here do not pollute the vista with unnecessary signage. On an 8x8 city grid, most likely there are 4 traffic lights (at the corners. Every 8th Street is usually a heavier traffic street. The only stop signs are at the intersection with those major streets - leaving up to 49 intersections in every 64 blocks without any traffic signs at all.
If you don’t understand who has the right of way at an unmarked intersection (the car on the right), don’t drive here. Please.
IME for most American drivers coming to an uncontrolled intersection, whoever got there first, even if only by a second or two, will then drive through first (“first come, first served”). If the two drivers arrive absolutely simultaneously, one will usually just wave the other through as a courtesy.
Wow. I’ve never seen an uncontrolled intersection in the US. I guess its a Midwestern thing, though I’ve driven there plenty.
ETA: I’m assuming “uncontrolled” means that there are no stop signs at all.
In the US, in every state I’ve had a driver’s license, a driver must yield to other drivers arriving at the intersection first. If they arrive at the same time at right angles, a driver must yield to the driver to the right. If they arrive facing each other at the same time then the driver turning left must yield (if no driver is turning left then there no conflict and no need to yield). This is true of uncontrolled intersections but also four-way stops.
However, I cannot remember the last time I came upon an uncontrolled intersection in the US where this rule comes into play. The only times I’ve seen uncontrolled intersections are a small side road opening to a large thoroughfare where drivers on the thoroughfare would give no thought to yielding to drivers entering from the side road.
I’m sure they must exist; I’ve lived only in urban and developed suburban areas.
I’m interested to understand how this works in practice. If you approach an intersection, how close to the intersection does the car on your right have to be before you have to stop to allow it to go? If you get there first, do you still have to stop and wait for the approaching car to your right to clear the intersection? Do you have to stop only if by proceeding you would force the other car to stop or slow down?
My curiosity is genuine; I’ve never seen this so prevalent.
Huh? Never heard of the rule in Canada.
It’s pretty much the same rules as the USA - yield to right on 4-way stop. Some places you can legally turn right on a red light, others no - but no right of way joining. Almost every intersection, the turning car has a Stop or Yield. I have heard of uncontrolled intersections, which IIRC correctly you should treat as a 4-way stop/yield (car on right has precendence) but they are rare except country roads where you should see any other traffic for miles. Joining a bigger road from an uncontrolled access (driveway or lane) you obviously have the stop, marked or not.
Also in Canada, typically the main street is through, the side streets have stops. On-ramps yield to through traffic. Where yahoos tend to race, they slow things down with a plethora of 4-way stops. Pretty much like the USA, I imagine.
I liked European traffic circles - guy in the circle has right of way. Best system, faster than 4-way stops.
It scares me that I drove out to Normandy, down to the Loire, and back to Paris totally oblivious of this rule. But then, I accidentally drove through a red light too. Doh! No accidents. Beautiful country.
This sounds like a rule from quieter times, when things were slow and went putt-putt. (2CV, anyone?) In Paris people race from stop to stop; even if you have right of way, turning into traffic like you own the road seems an invitation to an accident.
Almost no traffic circles here; our Canadian city of 800,000 has 4 that I know of, all part of a recent subdivision being cute, not on main roads. They should have more, but for higher-speed main roads, they take up a lot of space. I like the British technique - the smaller intersections just have a big circle painted on the intersection, meaning “treat this like a traffic circle - yield to the left”.
Lemme put it this way… I’ve seen San Francisco slopes and I’ve seen Bilbao slopes. Bilbao’s average slope is worse. There’s houses which have two doors on the same road: one on the top floor (the fourth floor by American counting) and one on the bottom floor (so the first). There’s only one curve on the road in between both doors. A road going straight down those hills would be a paradrop.
For you and for Labrador Deceiver, you haven’t driven in Massachusetts, I guess, where they abound. The “basic right-of-way” rule is in effect most everywhere in the US, as silly as it seems, and can be a major factor in settling of crash insurance cases (given the presence and testimony of credible witnesses). Yes, that rule gives a minor side street vehicle the r/w over traffic on a major thoroughfare if there is no traffic signal, stop or yield sign on the side street if the side street vehicle enters the intersection first. Like I said it’s a silly rule but it is the rule. Don’t test it, please or you could be dead rightaway.
This.
Actually, it’s simply ingrained in everybody’s mind. Everybody knows that you must yield to traffic coming from your right, so looking for traffic coming from your right is natural to drivers.
Basically the only exceptions are unmarked crossings between a major road and some tiny one. Normally, major roads are essentially always marked as having priority, so if it happens not to be the case, drivers might be oblivious to this fact and not yield to the car coming from the tiny road on their right. Such crossings are quite rare, but I remember a couple instances of “ooopps…actually he had priority”.
Yes. Actually, reading the report, the police officer has some troubles with spelling.
In Texas, priority to the right only applies to roads of equal size. In other words, two 2-lane roads meeting with no indication signs would yield to the driver on the right, but if a 2 lane road crosses a 4 lane road, the 4 lane road has priority. If a dirt road intersects a paved road, the paved road has priority.
Of course, there are very few unsigned intersections. And if roads don’t intersect at right angles, the straight through has priority over the merging lane. This is different than France, where apparently even if the right lane is merging into the left straight road, the left guy yields. That is what is screwy. In the U.S., I’m pretty sure that everywhere the merging lane yields to the straight lane.
Heh. Try passing your driving license test in that mess. I did. 5 times, before I finally had enough and figured if God had wanted me to drive, he wouldn’t have given me a kickass subway system.
The absolute worst spot is the famous Place de l’Etoile, the giant roundabout around the Arc de Triomphe. 12 major roads pool into it, there are no markings or traffic lights whatsoever, and apparently the normal rules of driving do not apply there. Nor do the normal rules of sanity and self-preservation.
That is because while it is a de facto roundabout (where the rule is that vehicules already on the roundabout have right of way), it’s in fact classified as a regular intersection (right priority, i.e. to people entering the chaos, even if that means cutting right in front of another car attempting to leave).
In practice and at rush hour, you either have to scare the other drivers into compliance, or be prepared to turn about for a long, long time. One taxi driver I knew jokingly advised newcomers to just aim straight at the street they want to exit the plaza from, close their eyes, accelerate and pray 
A friend returning from a trip to Africa (don’t remember the exact country… Cameroon, I think ?) was equal parts horrified and admirative of the local driving customs, which according to him are mostly based on two things : guts and the horn.
Guts is 90% of the road code - that is to say, if you have the guts to try passing a car by driving squarely in the way of an incoming, speeding truck, then you’re in your right. However, if the truck driver has the guts to not swerve or slow down at all and plows right into you, he was more in his right than you :p.
The horn is apparently the primary means of signaling and communication between drivers. Context is everything. Use of it can mean :
- I’m turning right
- I’m turning left
- Hello !
- I have the right of way. I DO. Do you have the guts to object ?
- Go ahead, you have the right of way, I plan on slowing down but not yet.
- I’m going to stop abruptly for no apparent reason
- I’m going to pass you
- Speed up, asshole !
- Slow down, maniac !
- Careful, there’s a crash/puddle/cop car/fallen tree/herd of pigs ahead.
- I have a really loud horn !
There are many Portland, OR neighborhoods that have uncontrolled intersections. However, they are placed at random and one has to be on the lookout for them. Generally though, they’re like spiders in your home; where you see one, there’s others in the area, lurking where you don’t see them. We also have a fewroundaboutstoo!
I think something’s missing, here. In the U.S., most of the streets signs are telling you to slow down or stop.
Let me try to explain it this way. You’re driving in Paris, and you turn onto a street with one of these yellow squares. “This is great”, you think, “I have priority; the Yellow Square says so.” Suddenly, you see a car coming from your right. You’re on a collision course. Now, ordinarily you’d have to slow down and let this miserable, unwashed plebeian ahead of you; but this time, you have the power of the Yellow Square, and you charge boldly on, confident in the righeousness of your right-of-way.
Is there any sign telling the other guy to stop?
Yes. If you get a yellow lozenge sign, then the other guy either has his own inverted triangle sign meaning “yield the right of way to all other vehicles at the intersection ahead”, or a standard STOP sign.
I thought Beijing was bad but France looks worse. From what I can tell, French driving takes its roots from Huckleberry Finn; specifically the argument between Huck and Jim as referenced to a cat and a cow and vice versa. (No offense meant, one way or the other)