Four-arm junction in Pokhara with no signs and no officer
You are riding west on a 5.5 m-wide urban road in Pokhara and reach a four-arm junction with no signal head, no stop or give-way sign and no officer. The north–south road crossing yours is about 9 m wide and clearly the busier road. A car is coming from your right (north), travelling south and going straight through. At the same time a bus approaching from the opposite direction has its right indicator flashing, so it intends to turn right across your path into the north arm. As you slow for the junction a scooter that has been behind you for 300 m overtakes on your left, close enough that you feel the draft. Fifteen metres before the junction a woman with a small child is standing at a zebra crossing, waiting. The road is wet from a shower ten minutes ago and the white paint of the zebra looks polished.
1. Work out who has priority between you, the car from the right and the right-turning bus, and state what you actually do with the motorcycle.
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Two rules interact here, and they point in different directions, so separate them.
- Uncontrolled junction, traffic from the right: the standard rule applied in Nepal is that you give way to vehicles approaching from your right. The car from the north is therefore entitled to go first, even though you are on the narrower road.
- Right-turning vehicle versus oncoming through traffic: the bus turning right crosses your path and must give way to you, because you are the oncoming vehicle going straight.
So the correct order is: car from the right, then you, then the bus-provided the bus obeys the rule. Never ride on the assumption that it will. Close the throttle, cover both brakes, reduce to a speed from which you can stop short of the junction, and watch the bus's front wheels and driver rather than its indicator. Proceed only when the car has cleared and the bus has visibly yielded.
2. What do you do about the scooter overtaking on your left, and why is its manoeuvre a problem here?
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Overtaking at or immediately before a junction is prohibited because the junction is precisely where paths converge and the overtaking rider's view of cross traffic is blocked by your machine. The scooter is also passing on your left, which in left-hand traffic is the kerb side and the side where a pedestrian or a stopped vehicle is most likely to appear.
Your job is not to punish the manoeuvre:
- Hold your line and your speed. Do not accelerate to block it and do not swerve right to widen the gap-either reaction puts you into the path of the car from the right.
- Expect the scooter to cut across your front to reach the junction first, so extend your following gap and be ready to brake.
- After it passes, re-establish your own approach speed and re-scan the junction, since the scooter may now mask your view of anything emerging from the left.
Ride predictably; the risk created by someone else is best managed by being the least surprising vehicle on the road.
3. The woman with the child is waiting at the zebra. How does that, and the wet polished paint, change your plan?
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A marked crossing gives pedestrians priority. She is standing at the edge with a child, which means she may step off without a second glance, and the child may move first. Plan to stop before the zebra, not on it, and leave enough room that you are not looming over them-stopping with your front wheel on the stripes forces them to walk around you and removes your own escape space.
The wet, polished paint is a separate hazard: thermoplastic road marking is far slicker than asphalt when wet, and braking or turning on it can slide the front wheel. So brake in a straight line on the asphalt before the stripes, arrive slowly, and do not combine braking with steering across the paint. Also re-check your mirror before slowing, because the scooter that just passed may be braking hard for the same crossing.