Traffic rules and priority
Domain 1 checks whether you can look at an intersection and say who goes first. Dutch priority follows a strict order: police and authorised officials first, then traffic lights, then signs, then road markings, then the default rules. Work down that list before you answer.
The default rule
Where nothing else gives an order, you yield to traffic approaching from your right - bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles and trams included. That right-hand rule only exists at junctions of roads. It does not apply when you leave a driveway, car park, petrol station, field or unpaved track onto a paved road: there you give way to everything already using the road, and a continuous line of kerb stones across the exit confirms the obligation.
Signs, shark teeth and trams
A yellow diamond makes your road a priority road until a sign ends it; the side roads then carry yield signs or shark teeth. An inverted triangle means yield to traffic on the crossing road from both sides, and a stop sign adds a complete standstill at the line. Trams keep priority at junctions even when they approach from your left, and turning left across the rails means letting an oncoming tram pass first.
Worked example
You reach a crossroads with no signs and no lights. A van from your left is indicating left; a cyclist approaches from your right. Order: the cyclist first, because it comes from your right; then you, because the van is on your left; then the van, whose indicator gives it nothing. If a tram were on the crossing road it would go before both of you, whichever side it came from.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating a car park or petrol station exit as a normal junction and claiming right-hand priority.
- Yielding to a vehicle on your left merely because it is indicating.
- Forgetting that a bicycle or moped counts as traffic from the right.
- Missing shark teeth painted on the road because no sign is visible.
- Cutting across a tram when turning left.