When do you have to make sure there's no traffic coming when you're driving, and when can you drive on down the road without checking for oncoming traffic? Hopefully, as drivers, we've internalized the law on this.
When you think about it, we all get inside large heavy machines and move them around each other at high speeds routinely.
If it weren't for a pretty widely shared understanding of what the rules of the road are, we wouldn't be able to do that.
Only when the rules of the road are broken do we really stop to think about exactly what they are.
Automobile accident lawyers think about the rules of the road much more often than other folks do.
When you're driving on a busy four-lane road, you know that someone coming onto that road from a side street has to wait for you to pass before they come onto the road.
You have the right of way.
They have to watch out for you; you don't have to watch out for them.
A driver on a side street entering a main road has to make sure things are safe, even if that driver can't see what's happening on the main road very well.
If the driver coming from the side street can't see, he or she has to get to a place where she can.
As between the person coming down the main road and the side street, the driver coming in from the side street is the only party with any responsibility to make sure there isn't an accident.
(Note - that doesn't mean that the person coming in from the side street is always liable in a lawsuit.
If the person coming down the main road is speeding, for example, and would have been able to avoid an accident if he were going the speed limit, then that driver may have been partly to blame for the accident and can't recover in a lawsuit.
If you live in a state like Maryland, or a place like Washington, D.
C.
, then an automobile accident attorney can explain how the doctrine of contributory negligence can bar your ability to sue.
) So, how you do you know if you're entering from a main road or a side street? How do you know if you are the one who has to yield? There are a few times when you definitely have to yield: (a) if your road has a stop sign, but the other road doesn't; (b) if you're coming to a T intersection, the cars on the road that would go across the top line of the T if it were written out don't have to yield, but the car that's on the other line of the T do; (c) if you're on a bigger road than the other car, the other car has to stop for you; (d) if a car is making a left turn or a U turn they have to yield to any car coming down the road toward them.
(e) Finally, if there's no other rule that applies, you have to yield to any car coming from your right, and any car coming from your left has to yield to you (which raises a problem, of course, if four cars arrive at a four way stop at the same time).
We all have an obligation to prevent automobile accidents when we're driving; if you can stop and prevent an accident, you should do so, even if you have the right of way.
We all have to get along out there.