Priority at crossroads

[horselady]

There was right old ding-dong going on this morning on my way to work. Busy crossroads, main road crossed by side roads. A driver had come across the crossroad from side road to side road, straight across. At the same moment another driver had pulled out of the side road to turn right and go off down the main road, They managed to avoid a collision by a whisker but had a right old go at each other. The driver who went to turn right said to the other bloke, why did you go straight on when I wanted to turn, but the other driver insisted that he was correct. I agree as I was always taught that you should not turn in front of traffic. What do you think?

[chazza]

The highway code states that you should drive past each other before turning therefore avoiding a collision. Rarely done in real life though.

Also, it's difficult to say without seeing diagrams but i would say that the car turning right should have given way to the one going straight on

[Toureman]

chazza is right as usual.

[horselady]

Yes, that's what I thought. The "turning right" driver was really obnoxious and I was sure he was in the wrong. Thanks both.

[sddsddean]

Absolutely correct. The only conflict would come if they had both been turning right as neither would have right of way, although as chazza says, you are supposed to drive 'round the back' of each other. One would hope that common sense would prevail, but sadly it is a quality that is severely lacking in modern motorists.

[R1Geezer]

Correct above, firstly there is no such thing as "Right of way" in this case the driver turning right must give way to the driver going straight on. The way to work this out is to imagine they where heading toward each other on the main road, then the one wanting to turn right into the side road would wait for on comming traffic. just rotate that through 90 degrees and tada!

[gollysailor]

If you ever drive in NZ beware. Vehicles turning right have priority over vehicles turning left into same road.