dfmmvs@hound.UUCP (11/16/84)
d10 david10
mikec@hou2g.UUCP (#M.CONDICT) (11/19/84)
What's all this talk about yielding right-of-way to cars on the right in
the U.S.? There are dozens of road situations in which one of two cars has to
give way to the other, but I am not aware of any left-right pattern. Here is a
summary of the most common situations:
1) You want to turn left at an intersection, while the car on the op-
posite side facing you wants to go straight. You yield to it, even though it
is technically more on your left than your right. (Visualize it).
2) You are entering a limited-access highway. As you come up the ramp
you look over your left shoulder and yield to highway traffic, which is on your
left.
3) Two lanes of highway are merging into one. Usually a sign and/or
the shape of the road indicates that one lane is terminating while the other
is continuing. Naturally, if you are in the lane that is terminating you
attempt to get out of it, but you yield to cars in the lucky lane, whether on
your left or your right. In New Jersey, where they want driving to be more
fun, they usually fail to indicate in any way which lane is ending. In fact
they go out of their way to make the narrowing symmetrical. What happens then
is that the car that can accelerate most quickly takes the right-of-way from
the other car, often accompanied by swearing and last minute evasive action.
4) At a four-way stop intersection, it is first-come first-served.
This priority is violated at one's own grave peril, leftness or rightness not
withstanding.
5) You are in the fast (left-most) lane of a mult-lane speedw -- oops --
highway and a car is pulling up fast behind you. You pull to the right,
yielding to a car that is now on your left as it zooms by. That is, passing,
which is the taking of right-of-way, is done on the left, implying that the car
being passed is yielding to a car on its left.
Have I been driving wrong all these years? Am I lucky to be alive?
Michael Condict ...!{allegra|ihnp4}!hou2g!mikec
AT&T Bell Labs