Right-of-way rules, intersections and roundabouts
The default rule
At an intersection with no signs, lights or markings, you must yield to traffic approaching from your right (hægri reglan). This applies in towns and in the countryside, including on gravel roads meeting paved roads.
Exceptions
- Leaving a private road, track, petrol station or car park: you yield to all traffic already on the road.
- At a T-junction the terminating road yields unless signs say otherwise.
- Pedestrians on a zebra crossing have priority; approach so you can stop.
- A vehicle already in a roundabout has priority; you yield on entry.
- Emergency vehicles with blue lights and sirens: give way.
Roundabouts
Iceland drives on the right, so you enter a roundabout turning right and travel anticlockwise. Signal right before your exit, not on entry. Do not change lanes inside the roundabout without checking.
Worked example
You are on a paved road and a car approaches from a gravel track on your right. The right-hand rule does not give it priority, because it is leaving a track onto a public road; it must yield to you. Candidates who apply "always yield right" fail this item.
Traps
Applying the right-hand rule to car parks and driveways; forgetting that signs and lights beat the right-hand rule; failing to signal exit at a roundabout; assuming the bigger road always has priority.