Yield

One of my pet peeves is the yield-to-right rule used throughout continental Europe. It amounts to the following. In the absence of signage at an intersection (very common), motorists should yield to traffic coming from the right. Sounds simple. The problem is that yield-to-right has since morphed into "I'm coming from the right, so I'm going to charge right through even if my judgement says that under the circumstances that's a stupid thing to do". Why? "Because it's my right!".

Yield-to-right does not work. I have lost count of the number of yield-to-right accidents I have witnessed at an intersection across from our apartment. What makes things even worse is that the rule is interpreted differently in different countries. For instance, in Holland you are supposed to give way to traffic from the right even when you are on a traffic circle. In Belgium cars on the traffic circle have right of way. So in addition to keeping track of a number of factors such as cars ahead, cars coming from behind, cars from the left, cars from the right, and cyclists and pedestrians coming from everywhere, you also have remember "Oh yeah, I just crossed the border five minutes ago, so the appropriate action is to...".

Surely, the idea is for motorists to act decisively based on a consistent set of clear rules that are not open for interpretation ("Is this guy planning to stop? Yes, I thinks he's slowing down... no... yes... no... no, he's not."). Tell motorists what to do. I know of two simple solutions to the problem outlined above: (1) the yield sign and (2) my personal favourite, the stop sign. These leave no doubt as to what the correct action to take is and have been in use in many countries for decades. Also, in the case of an accident, they leave little to the imagination when determining who is responsible.