Unmarked crossroads in the rain at dusk
It is 17:40 on a wet November evening in a village in the Jura. You are alone in a category B car and have been driving for 40 minutes. The street lamps are on and visibility in the rain is about 150 m. Your road is 5.5 m wide and carries no priority signs of any kind. Ahead it meets an equally wide road coming from the right in an unmarked crossroads. A stone wall and a parked trailer block your view to the right until you are roughly 8 m from the junction. A small delivery van approaches from the right at about 30 km/h with its indicator off; a cyclist with a dim rear light follows it about 15 m behind. Behind you a hatchback has been sitting about 10 m back since the last bend. Your speed is 45 km/h and your windscreen is starting to fog at the lower corners. You want to go straight on.
1. Who has priority at this crossroads, and what does the absence of signs actually mean for your speed?
Read the worked answer
Rule. No priority sign, no stop line and no yellow diamond means the general rule applies: right-of-way to the right (Rechtsvortritt). Every vehicle coming from the right has priority over you.
Who that is here. The delivery van comes from the right and therefore has priority. So does the cyclist behind it - a bicycle on the carriageway is a vehicle, and its dim light or slower speed does not remove that right. The classic error is to see only the van and pull out into the 15 m gap behind it.
What 'no signs' does not mean. It does not mean 'keep 45 km/h because I am on the bigger road'. Both roads are equally wide and neither is marked as a priority road. Because the wall and trailer limit your view to the right to about 8 m, you must be able to stop within roughly that distance. At 45 km/h you need about 25–30 m including reaction time, so the present speed is clearly too high for the sight line.
Practical line. Yield to the van and to the cyclist, and if there is any doubt stop before the junction - never on the crossing itself, where you would block it and lose your own escape space.
2. Describe how you approach the junction: speed, gear, mirrors, order of observation, and what you do about the fogging windscreen.
Read the worked answer
Speed and gear. Lift off early and brake gently to about 25 km/h, second gear, foot covering the brake rather than on the accelerator. This gives you a stopping distance of roughly 10 m plus reaction, which fits the 8 m sight line. Engine braking on a wet road is gentler than late, hard braking and also warns the hatchback behind you through the brake lights.
Mirrors first, then the junction. One look in the interior mirror and the right door mirror before you reduce speed, because the hatchback at 10 m is already close and will close up further. Then eyes right along the wall line, then ahead, then left; and a second look right just before you enter the junction, since a fast cyclist can appear in the few seconds you spent looking left.
The fogged screen. This is a real hazard, not a comfort issue: fogged lower corners hide the kerb and pedestrians. Switch on the ventilation to the windscreen, use the air-conditioning (it dries the air), rear screen heater on, and open a side window briefly to clear the humidity. If you cannot see clearly, stop somewhere legal before the junction and clear it properly - driving with a restricted field of view is a punishable failure to control the vehicle.
3. The van driver stops, flashes his headlights and waves you through. Do you simply accept and go?
Read the worked answer
No - waving is courtesy, not a legal transfer of priority. The van driver can only give up his own priority; he cannot give you priority over the cyclist behind him, over a second vehicle hidden behind the wall, or over traffic you have not seen. The cyclist is the specific trap here: he is following the van and may assume the van is stopping for a reason of its own, then pass on the inside or simply keep rolling.
What to do. Treat the wave as information, not as permission. Come to a near-stop, look right past the van for the cyclist, look left again, and only move when your own observation - not his hand signal - tells you the way is clear. Move slowly, in first gear, ready to stop within a couple of metres. If a pedestrian steps off the pavement at the same moment, you must still stop.
What not to do. Do not accelerate hard to 'thank' him or to clear the junction quickly; and do not sit there for ten seconds refusing to move, because hesitation creates its own confusion and invites the hatchback behind you to overtake into the junction. Decisive but slow, once you have checked.