Priority at a T-junction with a blocked lane and a cyclist
You drive a car westbound on a residential street in a town in Austria at 40 km/h. The street ends at a T-junction where your road meets a through road; there is no stop sign and no yield sign on your approach, only a worn give-way line whose paint is partly missing. A tram runs along the through road, and a tram is approaching from your left about 60 metres away. On the through road, a lorry is parked in the near lane 15 metres to your right, forcing oncoming traffic to use your half of the road. A cyclist is riding toward you on the through road's near-lane edge, just beyond the parked lorry, and is signalling to turn right into your street. Rain has made the asphalt slick and your windscreen is misting slightly.
1. Who must you give priority to as you reach this junction, and how does the faded give-way line change your legal position?
Read the worked answer
The faded give-way line is still a give-way line; worn paint does not remove the obligation. Since neither a stop sign nor a yield sign is present, the general rule applies: traffic on the through road has priority over you, and you must yield to vehicles on it. That includes the tram approaching from the left, which runs on rails and has priority in its lane; a tram cannot swerve, so you must wait until it has passed. The cyclist coming toward you is on the through road, so it also has priority over you - but it is signalling a right turn into your street, so its path will cross yours. You should not assume the cyclist will stop or yield; hold back at the junction line and let the tram pass, then judge whether the cyclist completes the turn before you enter. Entering and forcing the cyclist or tram to brake would be a priority violation even though the paint is faint.
2. The parked lorry forces oncoming traffic onto your side of the road. What does this mean for your speed and observation before you commit to crossing?
Read the worked answer
The parked lorry narrows the usable width and hides whatever is behind it, so your sight line along the through road to the right is blocked. Oncoming traffic forced into your half of the road may appear suddenly. You must reduce speed to a crawl, edge forward only until you can see past the lorry, and be ready to stop. Remember that the parked lorry itself is an obstacle: you cannot claim priority over vehicles that are already passing it, and you must not pull out into their path. Because the road is wet, your braking distance is longer than on dry asphalt, so your approach speed must be lower than the 40 km/h you were doing. Clear the misted windscreen before the junction - a partially obscured view makes any priority judgement unreliable - and only proceed when the gap behind the lorry is genuinely clear.