I don't mean to be offensive, but can someone please explain to me how the Stop signs work in US? Am I correct to understand that whoever arrived at the stop sign first goes first, regardless of where they are going? Is this considered a good system?
In EU you have strictly defined priority at stop signs - put simply, if you are going straight you have priority over someone turning, if you are turning, then the person turning right has priority over someone turning left. Simple as that.
I'm just thinking in context of automatic vehicles a strictly defined priority rules are easier to follow, no?
Reading this immediately makes me read the rest of your comment as much more negative and critical than I would otherwise. That's not necessary. If you want to ask a question about stop signs in the U.S., just ask it. (On the other hand, this is something you could google in about 5 seconds, so maybe your point really is just to criticize? Again, your opening line has thrown me off.)
> In EU you have strictly defined priority at stop signs
Have you ever seen a 4-way stop in Europe?
I think what you try to explain is the rule for unmarked intersections.
> put simply, if you are going straight you have priority over someone turning, if you are turning, then the person turning right has priority over someone turning left. Simple as that.
That wouldn't work very well when people go straight in different directions...
(Disclosure: I learned how to drive in Germany, details may differ in other European countries, apart from the obvious mirroring when driving on the left)
The fallback rule for all situations is "yield to the right". If you're at an intersection with no signs or markings, you get to drive if there's no-one to the right of you.
This creates a deadlock when all roads are unmarked and there's a car on each of them at the exact same time but that almost never happens and can be resolved by slowly inching forward if the person to the right of you doesn't move and then exiting the crossing.
When entering from a road that has a solid line or a yield sign, you always have to yield to the traffic on the road you're merging into. A stop sign means you have to come to a full stop even if the road is empty and slowly approach until you can clearly see there's no traffic and only then merge (after yielding).
Most other rules follow from that.
I'm not sure what you mean by "4-way stop" but if there were a 4-way crossing with stop signs on all sides it would result in a deadlock and be resolved the same way. Except with the explicit restriction that everyone first has to come to a full stop and slowly move forward to determine the traffic situation.
In the US everyone stops and then whoever arrived first goes, breaking the deadlock in a well defined fashion (as long as everyone agrees on the order!).
>>That wouldn't work very well when people go straight in different directions...
Yes, I forgot to mention the "right hand principle" - in this case, whoever is on your right has priority over you. So if you are going straight, and the guy to your right is going straight, he has priority. The only situation where it doesn't work and leads to a deadlock is if you have a 4-way(or 3 way) intersection with equal-priority roads and everyone wants to go straight. Then it sort of reverts to this "whoever goes first wins" strategy - but that's incredibly rare and seeing roads with equal priority meet in this fashion is unusual.
> That wouldn't work very well when people go straight in different directions...
That was actually used in my parallel-programming course as the example of a deadlock caused by priority inversion. Of course it almost never happens that there are cars in all four directions at an intersection without traffic lights, so it isn't much of a problem in practice.
In EU you have strictly defined priority at stop signs - put simply, if you are going straight you have priority over someone turning, if you are turning, then the person turning right has priority over someone turning left. Simple as that.
I'm just thinking in context of automatic vehicles a strictly defined priority rules are easier to follow, no?