Posted by Firstly, the answer to the Facebook Poll that I recently created. The question was:
Who has priority? If you are waiting to go straight on at a crossroads, crossing a major road, and there is another car coming from the opposite direction waiting to turn right onto the main road. Who should go first?
The answer is that you have priority over the car waiting to turn right onto the main road.
The reason is that you are travelling in a straight line, and the other car needs to cross your path. The results of the poll show that 57% of those who voted were correct, and 43% were incorrect.
I find this both interesting and worrying, and it is one reason that there are so many low speed crashes at junctions. Many people just don’t know who has priority. This is often demonstrated at mini roundabouts. How many times have you arrived at about the same time as cars from all other directions and then everyone stops, or everyone goes? Usually there is in fact a clear priority, but because people are unsure, the whole thing has the potential to become a crash. I’ll cover mini roundabouts in another article.
If you are unsure about the rules for any junction, then please take the time to find out. As time goes on, I’ll try to cover the most common mistakes that can catch you out.