The Right-Hand Rule

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25247, 28 July 1947, Page 6

The Right-Hand Rule

The Minister of Transport, Mr O’Brien, told a questioner in the House of Representatives on Wednesday that the Transport Department was looking at the traffic regulations to see if the wording of the one which includes the righthand rule could be simplified; and he added that the department would “ sympathetically consider ” including diagrams in it. By making such a statement the Minister has, of course, admitted the first weakness in the regulation. It has not been as clear, as easily understandable, as traffic regulations should be; and the Transport Department’s efforts over many months to tell road-users what it really means have not ended the confusion at busy uncontrolled intersections. While some road-users observe the new rule, as they variously interpret it, others, not interpreting it at all, follow the old one. But even if the Minister and his department now succeed in making the rule easy to understand, they will have done nothing to make it a better or a good one. For, interpreted to the letter, it leaves a margin for error; and error, too often, means accidents. To call the rule the righthand rule is, indeed, to misname it, for it requires vehicles to give way, in certain circumstances, to others approaching on th- 'left; and it is from this requirement that much confusion arises. It is sometimes not easy, for example, for motorist A at an intersection to see the direction indicator, or, more probab’y, the hand signal, of motorist B, approaching on his right; yet the direction to be taken by B determine*

whether A should stop or proceed. If B is turning to the right he gives way to A; if he is not turning to either side, A gives way to him. To simplify the wording of this regulation would be to eliminate half the confusion it causes. The other half can be eliminated only by revising the regulation itself, even if that means returning to the old rule, which required all road traffic to give way to vehicles on the right.