Flashing lights to yield right of way

Bobjims

Just this morning while I was in a junction waiting to make a right turn, a car travelling straight on against me stopped in the middle of the junction and flashed their lights to let me make the turn.

I generally don't make the turn in this situation because if there was to be an accident I would be at fault. It creates unnessecary risk. (Such as to a cyclist travelling beside the flashing car) Flashing headlights to yield right of way can create confusion and lead to accidents.

I'd love to get other driver's opinions on this type of scenario. I've come across this a number of times, I think it stems from people's generosity or politeness.

The yielding driver in the above description lost their temper at my refusal to accept their (good intentioned) yielding from flashing lights.

Jesus.

I'd have accepted their gesture. You can see if there's something else coming or not. They shouldn't really do it though.

biko

Flashing to let others turn is fine. In this scenario it was a bit strange but I would still proceed to turn.

kerten

I have had an accident at home country in similar scenario years ago.

Oncoming traffic was stand still and I was blocking my lane trying to turn left. Oncoming car gave me some space to make the turn to unblock my own lane. I rushed a little bit because of the traffic waiting behind me and a car showed up in front of me in middle of turn and I crashed into its left side.

Road was actually 2 lanes with one of the lanes was being used for parking. Car I crashed found a gap between parked cars to undertake couple of cars and showed up in front me as a result.

Conclusion was I was %100 at fault by crashing into a car which is driving in its lane. Simply lack of observation on my side.

That day I learned not to rush in traffic to unblock other cars and not to yield in 2 lane roads as a gesture.

Guy:Incognito

This irritates me no end when the person is the last car in a line to pass or is on their own. It takes longer for them to alow, indicate for you to go, you to realise and to check it's clear than if they just continued on their way and let you pull out yourself.

Just another in the list of poor observational driving by people I suppose.

corglass

Bobjims wrote: »

Just this morning while I was in a junction waiting to make a right turn, a car travelling straight on against me stopped in the middle of the junction and flashed their lights to let me make the turn.

I generally don't make the turn in this situation because if there was to be an accident I would be at fault. It creates unnessecary risk. (Such as to a cyclist travelling beside the flashing car) Flashing headlights to yield right of way can create confusion and lead to accidents.

I'd love to get other driver's opinions on this type of scenario. I've come across this a number of times, I think it stems from people's generosity or politeness.

The yielding driver in the above description lost their temper at my refusal to accept their (good intentioned) yielding from flashing lights.

You should have just made the turn if you could see it was clear. If you couldn't assess it was clear then waiting was the correct thing.

Not making the turn, as you did, resulted in exactly the kind of reaction you expected without any real justification.

As you say, this is a relatively common on the road and is unlikely to change as people think they're helping. Let them help, there's ZERO benefit to waiting there if you can safely carry out your turn.

savagethegoat

it's fine so long as you accept their flash as evidence that they are allowing you to proceed rather than evidence that it is safe for you to do so. If you can see it is safe to proceed, do so, if you can't you would be correct in refusing their "permission"

kirving

I try not to do it, unless thee is a clear reason such as traffic backing up behind me on a busy road and the person who flashes me also has traffic behind them. I see that as good alert driving, but in any other circumstance I would refuse to cross the path of the other car if I couldn't make it without them having to brake.

foxy farmer

Ive seen people stop on roundabouts to let people enter the roundabout. Daft.

colm_mcm

Just keep in mind that a person can flash their lights for you to cross them, then drive straight into you if they like. The light flashing has no standing if there was an incident.

Bobjims

colm_mcm wrote: »

Just keep in mind that a person can flash their lights for you to cross them, then drive straight into you if they like. The light flashing has no standing if there was an incident.

That's part of the reason I never go when people do this. I'm sure most people are just trying to be courteous but we're all taught to respect right of way when driving. You wouldn't get on too well in a driving test if you went around flashing lights to let people go against your right of way.

colm_mcm

There's a happy middle ground.

As a piece of trivial information, In Egypt, flashing your lights tells the other driver- "I have right of way". It's used where roads are very narrow.

I hate when the last car slows down and let's cars out- drive on and let us all get on with the business of turning. It's fine in slow moving traffic but sometimes it's just plain dangerous or at best a nuciance and unnecessary.