A faded STOP sign, a speeding scooter and a zebra crossing
Katerina is driving in a small town at 19:00 in steady rain. She wants to turn right out of a narrow side street onto a two-way main street. At the mouth of her street there is a STOP sign half hidden by a plane tree and a stop line worn almost invisible under the water. To her left on the main street a delivery scooter is approaching at about 45 km/h in a 30 km/h zone. To her right, 25 m away, a pedestrian with an umbrella is walking towards a marked zebra crossing. A car behind her is close to her bumper and hoots. Katerina hesitates: a colleague once told her that at any junction the vehicle coming from the right goes first, so she believes the scooter, coming from her left, must wait for her. She also thinks the pedestrian is not yet on the crossing.
1. Does Katerina have priority? Explain how the STOP sign and the right-hand rule interact here.
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No. She has no priority at all. The right-hand rule (yield to traffic approaching from your right) applies only at intersections where no sign, signal or priority road indicates otherwise. It is a default, not a universal law. Here a STOP sign and stop line exist, even if faded and partly hidden: a driver must obey a sign that is there, and obscured vegetation does not cancel it.
What the STOP sign requires: a complete stop at the line - not a rolling pause - then give way to all traffic on the main road, from both left and right, before entering. The scooter coming from her left is precisely the traffic she must yield to.
The scooter's speed is a separate offence, not a transfer of priority. She must not assume it will slow down, and she must not pull out to "teach" the rider a lesson; a collision would still be her failure to give way. Equally, she should not sit forever: she judges the scooter's actual approach - at 45 km/h it covers 25 m in 2 seconds - creeps forward where visibility allows, makes eye contact, and enters only when the gap is genuinely safe.
2. How should she handle the pedestrian and the tailgating car behind her?
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The pedestrian. Only 25 m from a marked crossing, the pedestrian is likely to arrive at the same moment as Katerina's right turn, and her path will cross the crossing. Pedestrians on a marked zebra crossing have priority, and an approaching pedestrian who is clearly about to step on has to be given way to. Because of the rain and umbrella, the pedestrian's view is restricted - Katerina should slow early, be ready to stop fully, and not wave the pedestrian across if another lane of traffic is still moving.
The car behind. A close follower and a horn are pressure, not information. The correct response is to make her intentions obvious and early: signal right well before the junction, brake progressively so the follower has time to react, and take the turn slowly. If the follower is genuinely tailgating, she should not compensate by rushing the manoeuvre - that converts one impatient driver into two casualties.
The general rule: never let another road user's behaviour dictate a decision that only she can judge safely. She yields, she looks, she goes when clear.
3. Suppose the STOP sign were missing entirely and the markings erased. What changes - and what does not?
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What changes: the default priority rule would then apply, and she would yield to vehicles approaching from her right - not from her left. On these facts the scooter from the left would no longer automatically have priority over her.
What does not change:
- She still must not enter the main road unless it is clear; entering and forcing another driver to brake sharply is a failure to give way regardless of formal priority. Priority is not a right to create danger.
- She still must give way to the pedestrian at the marked crossing.
- She still must adapt to the rain, the faded surface and her restricted view.
- If the junction is genuinely unsigned and unmarked, she should treat it as a give-way situation and resolve it by eye contact and slow creeping, not by asserting a rule.
The exam point is that priority rules are a hierarchy: police officer → traffic lights → signs → markings → default right-hand rule. Lower levels never override higher ones, and none of them overrides the duty to avoid a collision.