Give Way to the Vehicle on Your Left.
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WE have already briefly advanced our objection to the proposal of the Automobile Association and Motor Union for the adoption, as a traffic rule, "Give way to the vehicle appearing on your right." Until a week or so ago we had not heard that the proposal had received independent support, but one of the daily papers then gave it its blessing, so that the time seems ripe to ask that such a traffic rule should first be considered by a constituted authority—as, for example, the Minister of Transport—before any attempt be made to inculcate it in the minds of motor drivers.
• We contend that the suggested rule as drafted Is fundamentally wrong. With the rule of the road in this country, "Keep to the Left" (by the way, a perfectly sound, correct and practical rule as can be discovered if all the circumstances of entering and leaving and controlling a vehicle be studied), the proper course for the driver of a moving vehicle is to give way to the vehicle being Or appearing on the left. A stationary vehicle will be placed on the near side of the road ; a moving vehicle, in passing it, must move outwards in order to do so. In overtaking another vehicle it must move out of its line for the purpose, and, if the way is not open to it because of the approach of a vehicle from the opposite direction, it must give way to the vehicle on its left and fall to the rear of it. The joining roads nearest to a line of traffic are always on the left of that line, and, if a vehicle be in the act of emerging from one road and turning to the left into another, the vehicle already upon that road and travelling in the same direction must become an outside vehicle, and must give way ; that is, fall to the rear until the opportunity offers for overtaking. Always the overtak ing vehicle must be the outside vehicle, and its driver must be the one to take the extra 'need of care, because he is in the position of having a fuller view and comprehension of the traffic on the road, whereas the driver of the inside vehicle does not necessarily know what is to the rear of him.
The rule of the road at sea is "Keep to the Right," and anyone with experience of marine navigation knows how practical is the correlated rule that a vessel gives way to the vessel on the right. The logical application of the rule on land, where vehicles keep to the left, m u s t, therefore, be c28 "Give way to the vehicle on your left," and we trust that no other ill-considered rule be advanced and advocated for general . adoption.