Now Reading: Almost Right About Four-Way Stops
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Almost Right About Four-Way Stops
Q: At a four-way stop with three cars approaching the intersection, in what order do they go? The first to arrive is the first to leave, but then does it pass to the left or pass to the next to arrive?
A: Sometimes you don’t have to be right. You just have to be right enough. Take Issac Newton, for example. In 1687 Newton published a book explaining the universal law of gravity. For anything you’re going to encounter on Earth, and most anywhere in our solar system (except for an anomaly in Mercury’s orbit), Newton’s math works fine.
It’s sort of like the “first to arrive is the first to leave” theory for four-way stops. It’s not exactly right, but it works. If you want to get more accurate about gravity you need Albert Einstein’s general relativity. If you want to get more accurate about intersection rules you need the Revised Code of Washington. I won’t attempt to explain general relativity, but I’ll give the intersection laws a shot.
Before we get to the RCW though, let’s take a look at what’s in the Washington Driver Guide. The guide says (like you noted) that at an intersection controlled by stop signs, the first vehicle to arrive is the first to go. The second vehicle to arrive goes next, and it continues on. If two vehicles arrive at about the same time, the driver on the left yields to the driver on the right.
The law, though, doesn’t say the first to arrive is the first to go; that’s an interpretation of the law. Instead, it says that after stopping for a stop sign, a driver “shall yield the right-of-way to any vehicle in the intersection or approaching on another roadway so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard.”
Functionally, at a four-way stop, if everyone obeys the stop signs, you’ll do just fine by following the Driver Guide. Everyone takes their turn and we all get along. Until someone loses count. Humans making mistakes is as reliable as gravity. If someone at a four-way stop doesn’t yield when they are supposed to, take a breath, let it go, and reset the taking-turns process.
While we’re on the topic of nearly-right traffic rules, the Driver Guide also says that a driver turning left must yield the right of way to drivers going straight or turning right. It’s close, but there’s something missing. Similar to the stop sign law, the left-turn law says left-turning drivers “shall yield the right-of-way to any vehicle approaching from the opposite direction which is within the intersection or so close thereto as to constitute an immediate hazard.” Without the hazard part, you could conceivably have a left-turning driver waiting indefinitely at a busy four-way stop, yielding to every oncoming driver that’s going straight.
The Driver Guide is right on about who yields to whom when two drivers arrive at the same time. In the law, like the guide, you yield to the driver on the right. If I understand your question correctly, that’s the reverse of what you asked. That may have just been a writing error, but it inadvertently makes an important point.
Even the best-intentioned drivers don’t always get it right, so sometimes we need to adapt. When a driver who should have yielded pulls into the intersection, it’s now the responsibility of other drivers to “yield the right-of-way to any vehicle in the intersection.” If that seems unfair, think of it this way; you’re trading a few seconds for a safer intersection experience. That seems like a pretty good deal.
Kary
Two points/concerns. First, the above doesn’t seem to deal with the obvious, that two cars passing through an intersection in opposite directions can do so simultaneously. The one arriving/entering first can effectively act as a blocker for the one passing the opposite direction. Ditto two cars turning left. To only have one car pass through at a time at a busy intersection is inefficient and slows everyone down.
Second, in years past I would have said the yielding to the driver to the right was the most important rule. But that was due to a lack of credible reliable evidence as to who arrived/entered first, since both drivers would claim they arrived/entered first. But now with dash cams that might be different. Those dash cams would not only show who arrived first, but also who entered the intersection first, the rule applied by the RCW. My question though would be would a cop, court or insurance company look at that evidence?
DOUG DAHL
Yep, you’re right. If no one is crossing paths with another driver, like with opposing vehicles going straight through the intersection, there’s no one to yield to, and you don’t need to wait. That’s assuming you trust that the other driver would use their turn signals if they were turning. And you can often tell if a non-signaling driver intends to turn by how they approach and enter the intersection. I was thinking a confident, experienced, and attentive driver would be the one that would enter the intersection without waiting for the oncoming car to clear, but then again, an inexperienced and oblivious driver might do it too, so that leaves us the unconfident and attentive drivers waiting for the oncoming car to pass before entering the intersection.
Dash cams bring up an interesting question. What happens if a driver follows the RCW, but it doesn’t quite match our commonly accepted intersection practice? The dash cam would show who entered first, but if it didn’t play out according to a driver’s expectations, I could see a driver complaining that it was their turn. Which kind of gets us back to the thing about no one having the right of way; only yielding it to others. I can’t speak for the police and the insurance companies, but I would hope they’d welcome any evidence that helps explain what happened.
Susan
Thanks! I got my lefts and rights wrong.
There are a lot of overly polite drivers in my area and we can sit at an intersection inviting each other to cross first until someone wakes up and goes.
Kary
Susan, you hit on one of my pet peeves. Drivers who are too polite and try to unilaterally change the rules of the road. Their politeness just makes things inefficient because the other driver has to figure out what they’re thinking. They’re worse in a way than the people who don’t know what they’re doing, or those who are not paying attention, because they’re doing it purposefully!